LONG DESCRIPTION:

Defeated, dethroned and disoriented, she is still Sunset Shimmer. Student of

Celestia, Monster of Canterlot.
Once she destroyed kingdoms, defeated heroes and made monsters cry.
She will rise again.
She just has to do better this time.
To be better.
GENERAL IDEA:
This is a fic in my main continuity, same as Sunset Saga, with all my other fics.
Except this one is set post-EQG, as an AU. At first, Sunset tries to safely give
away her power as the Queen Bitch of Canterlot High, but she can’t just walk away
because her minions and supporters will rip the school apart. And then Fleur Dis
Lee arrives. Beautiful upperclassman, a model, and with an actual noble Blueblood
as her boyfriend, she is perfectly poised to step into the power vacuum… and her
intentions aren’t really good.
Notation
ALL CAPS STUFF is placeholders. They will be substituted for actual text
eventually.
Italics are for large-scale chapter plans.
Comments are provisional scenes, which I’m not super-sure about.
CHAPTER 1 - THE FRIENDS

Sunset trudged through her classes in a daze, surrounded by a vacuum of averted

eyes and heads turned away. Her only refuge - the familiarity of the classes and
the cold, professional indifference of the teachers.

Other students may not remember or understand what exactly happened during the Fall
Formal, but they knew enough to know that she failed. Like a wolf is killed by his
pack when it becomes too old and misses its mark, [a][b]so too were her schoolmates
all-too-happy to turn on their once Queen now that she has lost her power.

The past her would have relished the challenge. She would have squashed those who
rose against her, one by one. She would have used that fear to further her power
and utterly destroy whatever meagre spirit[c] her failure had afforded them. She
would have bounced back and become the undisputed queen again, and by the time of
Winter Ball her defeat would have been nought but a distant memory, her reign as
unassailable as ever.

She could even do it now. She knew the motions, all the buttons she would need to
push. Who was the coward, who she had blackmail on, who could be bribed with
promises or small favours, where the small enmities and childish rivalries could be
fanned into full-blown hatred, dividing her enemies for her to conquer... but she
wouldn't do it. It would be wrong, and just lead her to the same dead end that she
was in before the Fall Formal.

She had to be different this time around. She had to do [i]better.[/i]

And that meant taking a harder route.

Her hand dove back and touched her school bag. Even without opening the zipper, she
could feel the small file that lay within- the source of her strength, her ultimate
weapon. The first thing she had to give up to start her new path.

[color=#be4343][i]You could use it to solve your problem. Just this once. You don't
have to give it up. [/i][/color]
She jerked her hand back as if burned, and continued her march to the cafeteria.

“Sunset Shimmer! Over here!” Pinkie Pie was jumping in the air and waving her hand
to try to attract her attention.

Sunset sighed. Today of any days she could use some safety in numbers, even if she
did not expect anyone to start retaliating quite yet.

Grabbing her tray with something she absentmindedly piled on, she joined her new...
future... potential friends. Accounting for the message she received this morning
on her phone - very likely her only friends.

Not all of them were happy to see her, but luck - and Rarity - were on her side. It
took a few simple questions and remarks, and Pinkie Pie's chatter quickly fell into
some inconsequential tangent, quickly dragging everyone into[d] the discussion,
allowing Sunset to occasionally add a noncommittal "Yeah" or "Uh-huh".

She nodded carefully to her saviour across the table in gratitude… but there still
was the issue she had to address. Something, perhaps not as hard as what awaited
her later, but still - if she wanted to do better this time, she had to start with
a clean slate.

And that meant - among other things - apologizing.

"Girls...” finding a pause in Pinkie's chattering she raised her voice, "I wanted
to say... about the thing I did..."

Everyone at the table looked at her as she struggled to force the words out.

"It was wrong of me to break you apart, to break your friendship like that. For
what it's worth, I am sorry for that... for all the things I did. I don't expect
you guys to forgive me. And if you can't… even if I don't get expelled or something
after today, I'll understand if you don't forgive me, and I don't want to hold your
promise to Twilight over you.“

Reactions to that were mixed. A turned head from Fluttershy, a snort from Rainbow
Dash (who barely acknowledged her presence at the table, to begin with), a
reluctant nod from AJ from underneath her Stetson hat, a smile from Rarity tempered
by a level look, and an unexpected hug from Pinkie, who suddenly jumped from her
seat to glomp Sunset, nearly tackling her to the ground.[e]

"Of course, we forgive you, Sunny! And we really do want to be your friends, not
just because Twilight asked us, but because having no friends is horrible, and
everyone should have some real friends, and I am sure you'll be an awesome
friend!".

"She is right, darling," Rarity interjected. "We would be very happy to be your
friends if you let us. And an apology is a great first step."

"Yeah, we're awesome like that,"[f][g]

"How'd you mean, ‘if you ain't expelled’? Ain't no way Principal Celestia is gonna
give up on you, not now when you're ready to change your ways. Even if you did,
y'know..."

"Turn into a flaming she-demon?" Sunset asked sarcastically.

Pinkie Pie finally released Sunset, "And tried to turn everyone here into teenage
zombies for your own personal army!" she added cheerfully. "No offence."

But to Sunset's surprise, Applejack didn't flinch from the uncomfortable truth. The
hand she put on Sunset's shoulder was as hard and heavy as the conviction in the
girl’s voice.[h]

"Yeah, that. She might put you in so much detention your grankids will be staying
after school, but she ain't one to throw people out s'long as they try to do
better"

Sunset glared at her angrily. "You have no idea of the things I've done."

"Well I'd say we had a first-hand experience, sugarcube."

Sunset closed her mouth. It would be so easy, so simple to just let these naive
little girls believe that. She needed allies with the whole of the school soon to
be coming after her, but even more than that,[i][j] she felt just how much she
wanted to have friends, now that she had experienced what it felt like.
A little lie of omission. Not even a lie really…

She sighed.

[i]I have to do better,[/i] she repeated to herself like a mantra, [i]to be

better[/i].
She rubbed her shoulder in hesitation and continued.

“Look…” Fear was twisting her guts into knots. “If we are to do this friendship
thing, you have to know what you are getting into. And I have to give you an out.
Ask Pinkie what I did, and then see if you still want to be my friends… if you
still even want to talk to me. If you don’t - I won’t hold it against you.”

She stood up abruptly, preventing any objections and grabbed her bag.

"Ask her what I did to Derpy."

The break was going to end soon, and she had things to do.

Before she got to the door of the cafeteria, Rainbow Dash caught up to her.

"Hey! Wait a sec." Dash grabbed her by the shoulder, turning her around. "Look,
what the girls said, the second chances and all, we all mean it. Doesn't matter
what Pinkie has to say. [k][l]But I also wanted to tell you..." the grip on her
shoulder tightened. Maybe not enough to be painful, but well enough to prove the
strength beneath the lithe body of an athlete, "I will not let you hurt my friends.
Not ever again. You even look at Flutters or AJ or Rarity funny and no magic,
demons or whatever voodoo you have will save you. Capisce?[m]"

Sunset ground her teeth, straining to keep back the anger and fear that just kept
festering within her. [color=#be4343][i]Stupid, stubborn little... [/i][/color].
She stopped herself from finishing the thought. That was old Sunset talking, the
one who took any challenge as an act of aggression, as something to be destroyed
and demolished and replaced with nothing but fear and grovelling. That was exactly
the line of thinking she tried to avoid now.

[color=#be4343]"Got it."[/colour]If some of her irritation still escaped, it was a

mere fraction of a verbal lashing she would love to give her new/future friend, "If
I...."

"Oi, 's there a problem, gals?" a familiar screeching voice suddenly came from
somewhere above, as a shadow of someone's massive frame cast a shadow over the both
of them.[n]

"Gilda." Rainbow's tone dropped to the lowest registers of disgust and revulsion.
"Well if it isn't your loyal henchgirl, come to the rescue, eh?"

Adrenaline washed over her, drowning both anger and fear. If this got out of
hand... "No!", Sunset interjected, before the matter escalated any further. "No
problem, and no rescue needed, Gilda. Please." She twisted out of Rainbow's grip
and stood between the two of them. "We're just talking."

"Hmpf." Gilda stood back and relaxed a bit. "´f you say 't's cool... well, little
Crash, guess you get to live another day."

"Oh yeah? You wanna go a few rounds, you featherbrain? Bring it on!" It really did
not take much to provoke Rainbow Dash. "It wasn’t me who only got the [i]bronze[/i]
last championship."

"Why you little piece of..." She tried to reach the cyan girl over Sunset
struggling to keep them both apart. "If it weren't for that referee, I woulda taken
you apart, and you know it!"

"You wish, you big slab of stupid.” Dropping her backpack on the floor with a
single shrug, Rainbow raised her hands and crouched into a fighting stance.

"Look out, it's Luna!", Sunset almost shouted in a last-ditch desperation move.

That worked. Both would-be-fighters immediately straightened out in the most

innocent postures their acting skills could afford, while frantically scanning the
hallway for the dreaded blue-haired figure of the Vice-Principal.[o]

Sunset did not waste any of the precious seconds her move won her as she grabbed
Gilda by the bicep, and dragged her away from her rival.

"Down girl!" she growled at her protector. "There’s enough trouble as it is

without you going all Mortal Kombat on Rainbow in the middle of the hallway!"

With barely a twitch of her hand, Gilda easily threw off Sunset's hold.

"Aite. Fair 'nuff. You got the message?"

"Yes, yes, I got it."

"And?"

"And I'll be there."

That seemed to mollify the girl, and nailing Sunset with a last look of her yellow
eyes she reluctantly moved away.
Sunset slumped against the wall, as the adrenaline drained out of her, leaving
nothing but weary determination. That was close… And an unpleasant reminder of what
was yet to come before she could even begin to be picking up her life back on
track. Well, putting it on a different track. She was too nervous and too tired to
think up a proper metaphor, and it did not matter anyway.

Either way, things had to get done, and the least pleasant and the most terrifying
part of it she had to do now, lest she would lose her nerve.

Gathering what was left of her resolve to keep her panic at bay, she dug a small
file out of her backpack and pressed on[p][q][r].

[s]
The last few feet to the Principals' [t]office were some of the hardest in her
life, but even that was over way too soon. The metal of the doorknob burnt her
fingers when she turned it.

"Can I see Principal Celestia please?"

A secretary looked at her over her thick glasses. "Young lady, you don't just barge
into the principal's office when a fancy strikes you. Miss Celestia is a very busy
woman, and if you have an appointment..."

[i]Well, I guess I'll have to do it some other time...[/i]

It took quite a bit of effort to shake off the urge to use this as a reason to
procrastinate a little more.

"Look, Ms...Raven, just tell her it's Sunset Shimmer, about Miss Luna. She'll want
to hear it."

"Sunset Shimmer?" Apparently, the exceptional hearing was among many talents of the
Principal. "Please do come in."[u]

Sunset gulped as she crossed the threshold.

The Principal's office had not changed much since she had last came here three
years ago. The same wide wooden desk with the golden designs, the same book stand
next to the Equestrian flag. A few more school certificates and competition
diplomas - some of which Sunset helped to win.

Celestia was sitting at her desk - a large mahogany affair adorned with shining
symbols of sun and stars. Curiously, Luna's symbol was absent, despite both
principals sharing the desk.[v]
Sunset had occasionally wondered about that and now her mind, seeking desperately
to escape the present, wandered away to the familiar and safer lines of thought.

With an effort of will, she brought herself back to the present moment. Not giving
herself time to think, she made a beeline across the carpet floor and threw the
file on top of Celestia's papers.

"So.” Celestia looked at the file. You bring [i]this[/i] here. Again. I can't say I
am surprised, but I expected better. Even from you." There was so much
disappointment in her voice. So much sadness. Almost the same voice, the same exact
expressions that her Princess used when Sunset...
Her heart filled again with resolve, she finally found it in herself to raise her
eyes and look at Celestia's face.

"No. It's not what you think."

[color=#be4343][i]Last chance to back out[/i] [/colour], a traitorous whisper of a

thought came back[color=#be4343][i] "you can still use it to get out scot-free. No
punishment. No detention. You can be stronger than the Principal again. Stronger
than even the Princess...[/i][/color]

Her legs refusing to keep her up, she flopped on the chair in front of the
principal's desk.

"This is the original," words spilt rapidly. She cut at her weakness quickly, not
letting her think, not letting her get into the horrible temptation again. "I've
destroyed every copy, every other record. This is the last of it. Take it. Please."
She almost begged.

A white hand snatched the file off the table as one would grab a poisonous snake
before it bites.

"It's not a trade, not a ploy, not anything. No strings attached. I just... I
can't. Not anymore."

There it was. The Rubicon[w][x][y] was crossed, there was no going back. She sat
straight, fists clenched so tight her nails cut into her palm. She would not show
weakness. Not in front of [i]her[/i]. Not even if she was some cruel dimensional
double of the real thing. She forced herself to sit up straight and tried to squash
the traitorous tremble in her voice.

"Just please... please don't expel Gilda. Please. I'll beg if I have to, I'll do
anything, but I made a promise, and she needs it and..."

"Sunset," Celestia interrupted her ramblings gently. "Why?"

She couldn't... she wouldn't understand. She never did. Sunset hid her eyes behind
her hair.

"I just can't...I have to do better. Be better."

"Sunset Shimmer." The principal's hand took her by the chin and made her look into
Celestia's magenta eyes. "What you did with this thing was wrong and cruel. You
threatened to hurt my sister, you blackmailed me into admitting you into school,
and worst of all - all you had to do was ask, and I still would have helped you".

"I know." A hoarse whisper escaped Sunset's lips.

"Then why?!"

[i]Because I wanted you to hurt. I wanted my revenge on her, I wanted to see fear
in her eyes, I wanted to feel the power over the almighty, the infallible Princess
Celestia, and you were the closest thing I could get. [/i]

Sunset's lips shut so tight, they were almost white. The memory of that day was
always fresh in her mind, like an old wound that would never close properly.
How she barged in the CHS like she owned the place, and almost threw the folder in
Celestia's face. How she arrogantly demanded that she and her friend be admitted to
the private school[z][aa], no documents, no charge, or else she would go public
with this. Celestia's stone-cold, bloodless face as she read it. The slightest
tremors of fear betrayed by her eyes and the shaking of her hands. The acceptance
of her terms, in a hoarse whisper, as she struggled to talk.

What she thought would be one of her greatest triumphs in this world.

And in some sense it was. She was admitted to the school, full scholarship and all.
And after that, everything else came easy. The last line she had ever set for
herself had been crossed, and there was no longer a thing too despicable, too
disgusting, too horrible for her to do. Whenever she had to do another little
pointless cruelty, another despicable thing, to threaten, to hurt, to blackmail, to
humiliate someone for nothing but petty power and small amusements - in short to do
something even she knew was wrong, she would just summon up this memory, and it
would fill her with so much self-loathing that she knew that there were no new lows
to reach, nothing so vile and repulsive she could not stoop to.

And now she gave it up, so that maybe...just maybe she would be free of it.

Celestia sighed, stood up, and walked back to her seat. When she sat down, she was
back to the composed and level Principal everyone was used to.

"I will not expel you, Sunset Shimmer, nor will I expel Gilda. Not because of
this,” she waved the file, "Not even because you gave it up. You won’t be expelled
from here, simply because you asked – if in your own, forceful way – for an
education, and everyone who wants one, should get it. You are too bright and driven
to be wasted by public education or correctional school.

“However, you will have to face reprimands for....", her voice wavered for a
second, as she tried to recall what it was exactly that Sunset Shimmer did,
"...your actions during the Fall Formal. I expect you to report to detention every
day after school for the next three weeks, and I will arrange for you to visit the
school counsellor once a week. And I will expect you to attend every single
session. Is that understood?"

"Yes, ma'am". Under the heavy gaze of Celestia, all Sunset could do was whimper her
acceptance.

"All right then, I believe you may go, Miss Shimmer."

It took her three tries to collect herself and finally stand up.

"Sunset."

She was almost out when the Principal's voice caught her from behind.

"Ms Zecora is a wonderful counsellor and you should let her help you. But if you
find that you need to talk to someone else, if you need help -- you can come to me.
Any time, any reason. Please remember that."[ab]
________________

CHAPTER 2 - THE CONFESSIONS

The pieces were arranged neatly on the desk in front of her. Now it was merely a
question of reassembling the components in the correct sequence. A simple task, yet
one that required some care and concentration.

First, a barrel went into the slide, a touch of the cool metal sending chills
through her fingertips. A soft click confirmed that it fell into its proper
position.

Next to join it were the coils of spring, the resistance of the well-oiled piece
making it hard to put it in properly.

Sunset took a moment to admire the frame before she took it in her hands. Even
after all this time, the very idea of this device boggled her mind. Hundreds of
people, across centuries of history across all of the world - chemists,
metallurgists, engineers, designers -- spending hours upon hours to create a
mechanism whose sole purpose was to murder people.

Frame and slider joined with some effort to overpower the resistance of the spring,
until with another click the little murdering machine was almost ready to do its
job, lacking only ammunition to be complete.

In Equestria, they did not have anything like that. They knew gunpowder, used for
fireworks and mining and party cannons. They had knives for cutting food and
crossbows for grappling hooks. But the only real weapon in the traditional sense
was spears, and even they barely changed since the days they were used for fishing.

Since the oldest times, no pony had ever really put a fraction of a thought that
came into making this device into any spell, mechanism or tool devoted to war.
Except, perhaps, for her. In her darkest days, Sunset thought that maybe that was
why she ended up in this world, with creatures whose perverted minds were so filled
with destruction and murder - creatures, who likely were as evil and horrible as
her.

One by one oily pieces of death slid into the magazine, Sunset slowly counting them
down. The full magazine went into the gun, adding its weight to the already heavy
device, the pull of the gun underscoring the gravity of the situation. She racked
the gun, the click-clack of the slide lock resonating across the classroom with a
sombre finality.

She sighed as she slowly raised it to her head.

Red and yellow hair parted and the steel of the barrel touched the skin of her
temple.

Exhaling she slowly squeezed the trigger, and with a loud "bang" her head fell on
the desk.[ac]

In short, detention was [i]boring[/i][ad].

"Sunset, try to behave yourself please," the cruel overseer, in the form of a
lower-grade purple teacher, tried to encourage her a bit. "There's only fifteen
minutes left".

Her groan covered Fido and Rover's scratching, coughing laugh from behind her, as
she raised her head and looked at the clock. The horrid little device corroborated
the teacher's statement - it's been one hour and forty-four minutes since she first
sat down in this jail cell of a classroom, and therefore it was only sixteen
minutes of this... infinitely boring limbo [ae]before she could finally do
something useful with her time. Dear sweet Celestia, she never figured that such a
childish punishment could be so torturous.

She started to pack her books - the long-since solved Maths homework, the history
textbook she probably knew by heart now and tried to read out of sheer boredom, the
notes and the scribbles.

Slowly. So very, very slowly, trying to fill the remaining time with at least an
imitation of useful activity.

"All right, boys and girls. Detention is over. Don't forget your things in the
classroom, and try not to get in trouble anymore, ok?"

Thank Celestia for the small favours. Five minutes discount off her incarceration
may not have been much, but it was still a very welcome development.

...or maybe not.

Maybe a few more hours of detention would be a good idea. A great idea even. If she
really begged that purple teacher, maybe she’d let her stay in detention for the
rest of the day. Or the rest of the school year.

Sunset tried to backpedal back into the class, but it was far, far too late because
Rarity had already looked up from her sketch pad and noticed Sunset coming out.
She stood up from the floor and twirled her pencil in her hands avoiding Sunset’s
eyes, her already milk-white skin paler than usual.

[i]Here it comes. [/i]Sunset’s insides spasmed with fear. This was the part when
they realised just how despicable a person she was, and where Rarity came to tell
her that they wanted nothing to do with her.

This was the part where she lost her last chance of having friends.

“Sunset, can we talk please?”

“Here?” Anything to stave off the inevitable. “Maybe the Library?”

“I’d rather go to the Carousel Club room if you do not mind. It would be more
private.”

The heavy silence of the walk was blissfully and horribly short at the same time,
and soon the doors of the club room sealed Sunset with her fate.
[af][ag][ah]

Sitting down behind the desk she tried to do something with her hands as she
awaited the final verdict.

“Can you tell me what happened with you and Derpy?”

Staring at the desk, Sunset ran her fingers across her left shoulder, gathering her
nerves, and started talking in a distant, level voice, like answering a history
question. Just facts, just naked, bare truth.

“It was the end of my second year in CHS, March eighteenth, I believe. I remember
the date ‘cause that’s the day I picked up the smokes for the first time... I had
just finished solidifying my rule, gotten everyone I needed on board, and bullied
and blackmailed others, so I started moving things around, messing with the budgets
and the clubs to really get things going. Some of it was just to support my
position -- bribe Nolan and the Dramas, get some incentives for Lightning Dust, but
mostly I was just setting up to embezzle some of the funding because my cash was
getting low… it doesn’t matter.

“Either way, one of the first things we... I did, I ‘appropriated’ funding from
some of the less popular crowds. On paper, they were there, but nothing actually
reached the clubs it was supposed to.

“Most understood how things were and got with the program. There were some hiccups,
but generally, I did my homework so I didn’t expect anyone to buck back...

“Derpy did. I don’t even think that she was seriously trying to fight me or
something, I think she genuinely thought that it was some sort of clerical mistake,
and it wouldn’t even occur to her that someone would actually try to shut down her
Muffin-Tasting Club.

“So I come and talk to her, really nice-like, all subtle threats and veiled
insults, and I think it’s over and done with, you know?

“Except she doesn’t get it. And the next thing I know she goes to Celestia to sort
things out.
That I couldn’t have - my leadership was in too precarious a position, one small
slip could easily undo everything I worked for almost two years. I figure I needed
to stop her, and make an example out of her to boot.”[ai][aj][ak]

Sunset sighed and grabbed the sides of the desk, still not daring to raise her eyes
up and face Rarity.

“So we make her life pain. Every lesson, every break, at school and at home, me and
mine hound her. Do things. Say things. Until she breaks, until she yields.”[al]
[am]

Something snapped...probably the pencil Rarity held in her hands.

“Finally, we found her in the restroom. The one on the third floor. She’s all
curled up in a ball… she even stopped begging at that point, just… wailing, not
even crying anymore, she ran out of tears by then. Just waiting for Gilda to kick
her again, or do something else… and I start talking instead. Telling her what a
worthless, stupid and pointless waste of a human being she is, and how she should
know who her betters are…” Sunset kept twisting the knife in the festering wound
of the horrid memory.

Somehow that sole act of petty cruelty stood out against all the other monstrous
things she’d done. Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw, she talked,
spilling words[an]. The sooner Rarity understands how despicable Sunset was, the
sooner she can stop this confession.

“I’m really getting into it. I’m good with words, y’know? Taught by the best. And
even before, I always knew what to say to make it really hurt, more than the
punches and the kicks….and then Pinkie walks in on us. And you know Pinkie… I
suppose, you actually don’t, since I broke your friendship before you could… girl
is like Derpy. You can’t intimidate her, can’t bribe her, can’t even bully her
properly really. Indomitable, that one.

“And there’s no going back, not with what she’s seen… so I double bucking down. I
threaten Pinkie with Derpy. Just say that if she peeps anything about it to anyone,
much less to Principals, we would do that to Derpy every single day. Forever. Just
never stop, never relent. Turn her life into pure torture.

“I’ve never seen someone break like Pinkie did. It’s like the whole life was
drained out of her in a second, her hair went all flat, and the poor thing shook
like a leaf, but in the end, she promised. And even I know she can’t break her
promise. So I give the girl a few last ones to the ribs, snap a few pics and….and
that was it. Don’t even think about it twice after that, not unless I had to remind
someone what exactly happens when you don’t get with the program.”

That was it. Fear left her body with every last word of her confession until
nothing but numbness remained. She closed her eyes and exhaled. She was ready for
her verdict.

"I've done terrible things, Rarity, even before I came to Canterlot High. Things
that made me a monster. This -- this was just the tip of the iceberg.[ao][ap] You
do not want to be friends with someone like me.”

“Sunset… darling. What you did - with Derpy, with Pinkie, at the Fall Formal, with
the whole of our school, it is horrible beyond description."

Something warm touched Sunset's hand, as Rarity gently pried it off the desk and
took it in her own hands. Surprised, Sunset opened her eyes, to face Rarity's own
deep-blue eyes.

"But despite all of that, I know that deep inside you’re a good person."

“How? After all you know I’ve done...and so much that you don’t know.”

“Because we’ve touched your inner self, Sunset. When we reached out to you in the
Fall Formal, for a little second we all could feel what you really are. That bright
fire underneath all of the hatred and self-loathing… just a glimpse. But it is
enough for us to know.[aq][ar][as][at][au][av][aw][ax]"

Rarity smiled, and made a vague gesture with her hand, struggling to describe what
exactly did the girls know.

"And also, because your makeup is smeared."

"Huh?"

"You've been crying, darling."

Sunset touched her face and felt something wet. She really was.

"Oh, damn."

She tried to dig out her makeup kit with her free hand, to assess the damage, but
fumbled, letting the small round box roll on the floor, spilling whatever was left
of its contents on the floor.

"Oh, damn," she repeated dumbly. "And I just fixed it after lunch".

The warmness on her hand was gone, as Rarity released it.

"You can borrow mine if you want."

She dug into her bag, and produced a makeup kit of her own - a big white box, with
a blue diamond pattern adorning the lid, and slid it across the desk towards
Sunset.

[centre]***[/centre]

Her home greeted her with a welcome emptiness and the ever-present scent of mould
and mustiness she could never quite get out, no matter how much she cleaned and
scrubbed.
Dropping her schoolbag on the floor, she followed the familiar routine of returning
from school.

Take off the shoes.

Hang the coat on the nail in the wall.
Stow the bag on the floor by the door.
Three steps to the left, to the bathroom and turn on the shower.
Take off the clothes, and try to ignore the cold of the unheated room.

She stood in the shower for what seemed like an eternity, under the ice-cold water,
until she stopped shaking and the numbness forced away the memory of the
emotionally exhausting day and she could finally feel more like a human being than
a soulless, cold automaton the final confession of the day has left her.

After a small lunch, mostly consisting of yesterday's leftovers and some tea, she
was back to being herself... for the time being at least. She could break down
later, but she could not afford it quite yet.

She sat before the small mirror and opened Rarity’s kit.

[i]Time to put on my game face[/i]

________________
CHAPTER 3 - THE FIGHT
She felt nervous. She, [i]the[/i] Sunset Shimmer, Queen (well, now actually the ex-
Queen, technically speaking) of the whole damned CHS was feeling nervous before
meeting her own lieutenants. How the mighty have fallen.

Well, there was no way out of this. They had trusted her before to lead them, so
the least she owed them now was an explanation.

Lost in her thoughts, she had almost bumped into Tiara's parents as they came out
of the house.

"Miss Shimmer! Is it Tiara's lesson time already?" Filthy Rich had almost fished
out his wallet before Sunset stopped him.

"Oh no, Mr Rich, those are on Fridays. Just some school paper business.”

"Sunset, please, like I always say -- just call me ‘Fil’. You're not in the office
anymore, - you're practically a friend of the family. Isn't she, darling?"

"Of course honey.” If looks could kill, then Spoiled's would have already atomized
Sunset on the spot, leaving nothing but a nuclear shadow on the grey walls of the
Rich Manor. “Always a delight to have you here, Sunset".

Both women exchanged their most pleasant smiles that somehow still looked like they
were baring their teeth to rip out each others' throats.

"Why, with the poor dear being on her own, we're practically her [i]only[/i]
family, at that."

"Have you had a chance to change your decision on refusing the winter internship?"
Mr Rich said. "It will be Diamond’s first time in the company, and it would be so
great to have you there to show her the ropes."

"Actually, now that you mention it..." Sunset smiled sheepishly. This summer she
obviously had no interest in another Barnyard Bargains internship, given her big
Fall Formal plans. But seeing how that bet had crashed and burned, the suggestion
was very welcome.

"Splendid! Absolutely marvellous. You know, Sunset," Filthy winked

conspiratorially, "My little gem really looks up to you. Ever since you started
tutoring her, she's been working hard at school, got interested in the family
business and actually asked me for this winter's internship! Such a shame about her
dancing classes though..."

Every word of praise seemed to drain more and more on Spoiled's efforts to keep up
her smile until finally, she gave up.

"Honey, we’re going to be late, if we don't leave now." Abandoning his grip, she
turned away and walked away towards the car. She stalked past Sunset, not even
bothering to say goodbye.

Filthy Rich, oblivious to his wife's displeasure, blinked in surprise.

"But it's at least forty minutes until the show starts..." he muttered checking his
watch. "Well, welcome back to the Barnyard Bargains team! Glad to have you on
board. Now, please excuse me.." He shook Sunset's hand hastily and scrambled after
his wife.

Sunset walked deeper into the house, heading for the room where she knew others
would be waiting for her. She put her hand on the heavy doors of the study… and she
hesitated.

She could leave now. Be free of her legacy, waive all responsibility for what she
has wrought. Suffer the resulting hounding and bullying, as no doubt some would
expect, silently and with even a pretence of nobility and come out of the crucible
cleansed of her past, a good, nice girl.

But there would be consequences.

She had spent too much time spreading the web of her influence throughout CHS,
twisting every structure, every group. If she was ousted, it would all crumble
around her, in a bacchanalia of childish violence, as her minions and uppity clique
leaders would rip CHS apart fighting for the vestiges of her power. All the dark
little secrets these children hid so carefully, all the dirt she kept as her
weapons, all the petty cruelties she held as her exclusive right would come out… it
would not be lethal, but it would not be pretty either.

She once chose to rule this school, and even if she had no such intention when she
started out, she now had the responsibility towards it. Which means that she needed
her power back, and her minions in line.

Decision finally made, she pushed the door open and entered to face those who
waited for her.

[center]***[/center]

"Hello, Sunset."

"'Lo," Gilda took a pause in stuffing her face with some fancy crackers to
acknowledge Sunset's arrival.

Sunset took a moment to appreciate the set-up. The girls arrived earlier than her
and had already taken their positions around the small round table with snacks and
refreshments.

Diamond Tiara took the biggest armchair, opposite the door through which Sunset
just came in.

The other two sat by her sides, making an arch of which the last person to arrive
was the focus. Both freshmen were propped up on extra seat cushions so that when
Sunset would take a last low chair meant for her, they'd be looking at her from
above.

A classic arrangement meant to surround and intimidate, put her in a defensive

position. Not original or overly clever, but appropriate to the situation and well
implemented. An untimely sense of pride swelled in Sunset's chest - little tyke was
a fast learner if she’d ever seen one. Even if she was now using her skills against
Sunset herself.

Sunset plopped on the chair meant for her, and grabbed a drink off the table.

Adjusting the tiara on her head, Diamond tried to keep up the stern look. "Do you
know why we have summoned you here?" The little girl on a high chair trying to give
her a stare would have been funny if not for the threat it implied.

"It's 'cause you got utterly spanked in Fall Formal,” Gilda helpfully explained.
"And we kinda wanna know what the buttfeathers actually happened."

"Thank you, Gilda, I figured that one out," Sunset saluted her with a glass. "Shall
we do it formally?"

Gilda waved ahead, willing to humour Diamond and Silver who so loved all their
silly formalities.

Bumping her pad on the table, to get the papers to stack up neatly, and turning on
the dictaphone, Silver opened up the meeting.

"Khm. Irregular meeting of the club is hereby open. All present, please say ‘aye’."

A roll of "ayes" went around the room.

"The agenda for today's meeting is the review of the Fall Formal project. The first
speaker: Diamond Tiara."

“Seeing how the Fall Formal project has failed, we are here today to see what were
the reasons for this failure and whether Sunset has too many responsibilities to
handle them.”

There was a dark glint in Tiara’s eyes as she spoke those words, her tone sharper
than the serpent’s tooth. Sunset knew the phrasing all too well - it was one of her
favourites.

[i]Diamond, I must have given you too much to do.”

“Don’t worry, you’re just a kid, I’m sure next time it’ll work out.”
“Well, it’s probably my fault for expecting too much of you.”
“Next time I guess I’ll have you do something easier.”[/i]

Just a shade of condescension, a little hint of disappointment mixed into mock-

sympathy and the words had the power to hurt worse than a stab of the knife. The
words she used like a whip - to spur the child to work harder, to be more
ambitious, more ruthless… the words that the student now so enjoyed returning back
to her mentor.

"Diamond, what are the rules for project failure handling?" She summoned her ‘tired
teacher’ voice, letting the uncomfortable question slide.

"Err," the kid fell into a familiar routine instantly, "correction, validation and,
um..."
Silver perked up -- she knew the answer, and it made her almost swell with the
pent-up desire to blurt it out.

"...verification!" Diamond finally got it.

"That's right," Sunset noted. "Let's hold to that, then."

"Fine." Diamond frowned. "Correction was about fixing the consequences, right?”
Silver Spoon nodded, confirming. “Let's start with that. What are we gonna do about
Twilight Sparkle?"

"And who the hay is she?"

“Doesn’t matter. She won’t be attending CHS anymore.” Sunset interrupted.

“Huh? How’d you know that?”

[i]Because Twilight was really a magical pony princess from an alternate dimension,
here on a quest to recover a magical artefact of nigh-unlimited power that I
stole[/i]... was not an acceptable answer, clearly. Sunset sighed inwardly.

[i]Just lead them on, let them make their own conclusions.[/i]

The less details she added to her story, the less she would have to keep track of
later. And the less she had to lie.

She shrugged. “We [i]talked[/i] after the Fall Formal, and she decided that she
really could not stay in this school.”

That was technically not a lie. Well, maybe a little, but it was as close to the
truth as she dared to get.

“That’s good,” Gilda allowed. “I did not like that lame little nerd.”

“I think that part can be considered handled?” She looked at Diamond Tiara, who
nodded reluctantly. “Good. Next?”

“Why did you dump Flash?” Silver suddenly asked, her cheeks tinting pink at the
sensitive topic.

“It just wasn’t tenable any longer,” Sunset shook her head. “You can only drag the
guy around for so long before you either have to get serious or let it go.”

“Maybe you should’ve put out.” Gilda was as crass as ever, causing Silver to spit-
take her soda to her great amusement.

That... hurt. The memories of that evening when they broke up still filled her with
red-hot rage.

“Would you?” She snorted in fake derision, taking care not to clench her fists.

“Why not? He’s a total hunk.”

Sunset merely looked at the girl with an eyebrow raised, until Gilda had to look
away.

“Alright, alright, point taken.”

She retreated back into the folds of her armchair, waving the question away.

“But…” Diamond paused for a bit, trying to muster the courage to ask the next
question, “why did you tell us to sit the whole event out? We could’ve helped!”

Sunset stiffened. This was it. Diamond had finally gotten to the core of the issue
at hand - where previous attacks were legitimate questions in themselves, they were
meant to be a reconnaissance. Probes to assess Sunset’s defences, a trial run to
rack up the nerve to ask the real question.

Gilda straightened up for a second. “Yeah, what was up with that? I get that you
told me and the twerps to sit this one out, but then you go and grab Snivelling and
Sycophant as your backup? That was super-lame.”

Sunset breathed carefully, and looked around the room, focusing on every little
detail she could see.

The stillness of Tiara’s left hand gripping the arm-rests of her seat as she leaned
forward to hear Sunset’s answer. Gilda watching her carefully with half-lidded
eyes, as the big girl slumped lazily in her armchair. Silver’s nail, tracing
through her notes and talking points, to avoid eye contact.[ay]

“And they were [i]my[/i] minions,” Silver muttered dejectedly. “You said I could
have them.”

Every twitch of the muscles, movement of the eyes, turns of the body - subtle tells
betraying the true motives and thoughts of others, telling her what to do next.

[i]First, hard-counter the accusation.[/i]

“You know full well that I have a right to every resource in our possession,
Silver. It’s in the rules. If you needed them for something, you should’ve spoken
up.”

The harsh and unapologetic tone was a sudden contrast against the relaxed way she
talked before. It took all three girls by surprise, causing Silver to recoil and
further retreat into her papers.

[i]Further the advantage...[/i]

“It is my prerogative to decide who, when, and how I deploy, and I have no need to
explain my actions to any of you. You all agreed to this when we began this
enterprise, so don’t you start complaining now.”

First signs of resistance started to appear, clear as daylight: Diamond’s slightly

furrowed brow, Gilda’s hand balling into a fist. Silver’s fingers сrumpling the
papers she held.

[i]And now pivot and turn, before they counter…[/i]

Her voice changed again, turning on a dime from harsh and cold to simple and
earnest. Hands on the armrests, palms spread: open position of comfort and trust.
Push-and-pull, lead and silver -- the basic trick of any conflict, sort of
negotiation jujutsu. This must’ve been what Gilda feels like when executing one of
her throws in a fight.

“Look, I was working on a side project, and I needed to keep you off the board for
a while. If it had worked out, I would have brought you in, but if it hadn’t - I
would have just written off the two morons and cut the losses.”

That was pretty much the truth. She did intend those two insufferable twerps as
test subjects for the powers she expected to get… and then Twilight Sparkle got
involved and everything went sideways.

“...and then Twilight Sparkle got involved and everything went sideways.”

She felt like she was walking a tightrope now. She won herself some time for
manoeuvre with her sudden counter-attack, but now she’d have to thread the thin
path between the Scylla and Charybdis. First, she’d have to placate Diamond and
Silver, hurt by her benching them in the Fall Formal, yearning for her affirmation
that the little girls still had an in with their sometime idol and mentor.

"You're my most powerful asset, kids." She looked at Diamond. "The best I got. That
hasn't changed. You were supposed to be my ace in the hole, in case something went
wrong -- I just didn't have the chance to call on you." She sighed, exaggerated to
borderline theatrics, "I guess I should've remembered that you're not just little
girls anymore."
On the other hand, should she make the mistake of being too nice, should she show
even a sign of weakness, if she’d look like she was not worthy of the pedestal she
let Diamond put her on, both Gilda and her students would stab her in the back and
throw her out with yesterday’s trash as surely as scorpion stung the frog, out of
nothing but pure predatorial reflex she herself trained into them.

Diamond leaned forward, her posture completely open, her eyes open wide. So
trusting to her mentor, so completely open. It would have been so easy to sting her
right where she knew it would hurt, an abject lesson for uppity minions, a show of
strength to placate Gilda, a welcome outlet for the frustrations of the day...

[colour = “red”][i]Always knew what to say to make it really hurt. More than the
punches and the kicks[/i][/colour].

Memories came sudden, unbidden. Her hand that still remembered Rarity’s touch
shook, almost spilling the soda from the glass. Even as the perfect, vitriolic
words formed in her mind, she hesitated.

The pause became too long, the unexpected silence becoming uncomfortable.

“So why didn’t you then?” Gilda asked. “Lost your nerve?”
“Yeah, and why not ask me? I’m the school paper editor!”
“And I wanted to help out!”

She tried to maintain her defences, retreating back into the calm and formal style
she employed at the beginning of the meeting, but it was both too little and too
late. The others have smelled blood, and now they were at her throat, demanding
answers. For the first time this evening, she felt that she was losing control.

Anger bubbled up within her as a counterpoint to fear, and she let it consume her.
The red-hot wave of hatred flooded her from within, drowning out every other
emotion and leaving nothing but burning rage fuelled by every little indignation
and fear of this day.

"ENOUGH!" Her fist smashed into the table.

In the silence that followed the sound of the glass rolling across the table seemed
deafening.

[color=#be4343][i]That’s what you get for being nice. If they want a war then
that’s what they’ll bloody get.[/i][/color]

Shaking with fury fed by her fear, she let her anger lose.

"Yes, I took some bloody risk, and yes I have failed. Because that is my
prerogative as a leader of this little club - to make decisions and to take risks
for all of us. You didn't complain about the risks I took to break that stupid
bimbo Saddle, or when it was my decisions that made Withers-junior our bitch." With
every word, she walked towards Tiara, who seemed to try to squeeze between the
cushions of her seat to vanish from Sunset's flaming ire.

"None of you dare to forget that it is I who made you who you are. That without me
you'd be nothing but a silent little nerd..." she turned to Gilda - "...a two-bit
thug..." Now she was hanging over the would-be usurper, nailing every word into her
with deliberate cruelty, knowing just how much they would hurt. "...a snivelling,
[i]pathetic[/i] little thing I had to [i]scrape[/i] off the floor of the CHS to get
you where you are. If any of you still think that you've got what it takes to do
what I did for four years then you're welcome to try."

Uneasy silence reigned in the room, underlined by averted eyes and Sunset's heavy
breathing. Her outburst left her drained and elated at the same time.

[color=#be4343][i]Now wasn't that easy? Wasn't that what you really

are?[/i][/color]

She chased away the last echo of the thought, as guilt flooded her at the sight of
Tiara unable to look her in the eyes. [i]I only did what I had to. I can't let them
run rampant over CHS. I have to be better than this...right?[/i]

Somehow her own thoughts rang hollow in her head.

"Come on kiddo, look at me." she fished out Diamond's face and forced the scared
little girl to look at her. "We're now past that, alright? I just need you to stick
with me for a little bit more."

Suddenly Diamond hugged Shimmer fiercely, her warm small body pressing into
Sunset's jacket, crying.

"I am so sorry, Sunset. I know that you have saved my life, I would never, ever
abandon you, but...".

It was somehow very different from Pinkie's glomping in the cafeteria. Pinkie was
casual with her hugging - she meant every one she gave of course, but it was a
simple gesture. For the usually restrained Diamond Tiara, unused to physical
contact and displaying emotions, it was on a different level entirely. The greatest
gesture of trust, like a wolf showing its throat to the leader of the pack.

"Never say never, kid. I taught you better than that." Sunset ruffled Diamond's
hair awkwardly. "You did this set-up very well, you know," she tried to encourage
the girl. "Classic, and very well done".

"Really?" Stifling last sniffles, Tiara looked up to Sunset, eager for more praise.

"Sure thing. You did good, my young padawan." Untangling herself out of Tiara's
embrace, Sunset gave her a little mock bow. "But, you did make a couple mistakes."

"Aww. Like what?"

Plopping down her hard-won armchair, Sunset grabbed a fistful of condiments and
glasses off a table, arranging them to illustrate her point:

"Well, for one, it was a bit too obvious. I come in, and I instantly know your
plan. If I'm not very good at this, then yes, I get intimidated straight out of the
door, get confused, make mistakes. But if I am smart, I can try to make a counter -
move the chair, ask Big G to switch places with me, since I gel with her better
than she does with you, and can make her back my counter-play - things like that.
For smarter opponents, you want to make it a bit more subtle. Maybe move chairs a
bit, or get Silver to temporarily walk away and then come back in when I sit down,
because when I have taken my seat, I am stuck, see?"

Diamond nodded her understanding.

"But the big thing is - you let me take it formal."

"Huh?" Tiara's face scrunched up in confusion "Why? Formal means more official,
right?"

"Well, yes, that's correct. But it’s also impersonal. You use formality when you
already have an established position, and you are playing defence. Remember what we
talked about ‘the Hoof of the Princess’"?

"That's when you sort of pretend that it's not you who does the bad things to
someone, but, like, the natural order of things. Then he does not associate bad
things with you, right?"

"Exactly! That's what you get when you use full formal rules - you pretend that
it's not your decision, and you're just following the rules, or corporate policy,
or strategic vision or some other silly nonsense. But if you're making a power-
play, you [i]want[/i] it to be personal. You want everyone to know that it is
exactly you who threw down the gauntlet and kicked him in the family jewels. Yeah,
he may hate you for it, but he'll likely hate you anyway, and then when he is taken
down, there is no confusion who is the baddest, meanest thing around to take over."

"So I use formal rules when I defend, but I use personal when I'm on offence?"

"Well, it's a bit more complicated than that, but that is a good rule of thumb. If
you're secure you play by the rules. When you take risks, you go in gun blazing and
make it as personal as you can." Sunset gave Diamond a smug grin. "Also, make sure
that the person who you use rules against is not the same girl who wrote them in
the first place"

That earned her a raspberry blown by her eager student, as Tiara squeezed into
Silver’s armchair.

"You done with the extra credit, Keyser Soze-junior?" Gilda was finished with the
crackers and started to get impatient. “You made your point, so we got your back.
What's our next move?"

"That's the validation part, right?" Silver couldn't stop herself from showing off.
Emboldened by the confirmation from Sunset, she continued. "A diversion? We could
drop the Sweetie thing. Or something on Flash. Like really play up the abandoned
girlfriend thing, get Sunset to be the victim..."

"I dunno," Gilda voiced her opinion. "Sentry may be beyond lame, but everyone knows
he's a nice guy."

"Oh, maybe try some scare tactics.” Tiara threw in her idea. “Throw out some
rumours that what happened at the Formal was a lesson to everyone. Like if she is
willing to blow up the school over Princess title, imagine what she'd do to you!"
"We'll need to round up some muscle, get some pre-emptive bullying. I would expect
they will try something before next week, just to test if Sunset's gone soft."

The brainstorming was picking up the pace, and for a few seconds, Sunset just sat
in her hard-earned seat, enjoying the sight of the well-oiled machine of terror she
has created.

She could already see all the venues she could take... with a few small
adjustments, all she had to do was just let her loyal minions do what she trained
them to do, and everything would be back to normal... to the way things were
before.

She frowned.

That was not what she came here to do.

She stretched, the tip of her head to the ends of her toes, and breathed in.

[I] Time for round two.[/i]

[center]***[/center]

It was long after dusk that she has crawled back into her apartment, feeling beyond
tired and almost fell face-down on the futon that served as her bed.

"Ugh."

She wished she could just close her eyes and fall asleep right now. But as always,
things to be done would not do themselves. Even if it were something as simple as
unpacking her bag and changing.

Today was way, way more terrifying than she could ever have imagined, but
everything turned out better than she had any right to have. Her minions were not
yet rampaging all over the school in their blind attempts to hold on to the remains
of her power, she was not expelled, and she had friends.

That last thought startled her so much, she froze for a second, stopping mid-
action, hands still in her school bag.

She could have [i]friends[/i] again.

Someone who saw how really bad she could be and still stood by her, not because
they had something to gain, but because they wanted to. Someone who would help her
not expecting anything in return, and be helped back not for any profit but simply
because they were friends.
Someone with whom you could talk not expecting things you said to be used against
you.[az][ba][bb][bc] It may be a while until she can truly call them her friends,
but today was a good start.
Finally, books and notes set back in their rightful places on the shelves, clothes
dumped in the laundry basket and she let herself snuggle into the sweet, sweet
embrace of her blanket.

Rarity's make-up kit was right there on the nightstand, and already half-dreaming
she ran her fingers over it. It was cold and smooth, little blue plastic diamonds
on its top twinkling in the dim lighting of the room, and she could swear it still
somehow smelled faintly of something sweet with just a hint of tart gooseberries.
Rarity's perfume.

[i]We would be very happy to be your friends if you let us, darling.[/i]
[i]I'm super-sure you'll be an awesome friend![/i]
[i]We got your back. What's our next move?[/i]
[/i] Sunset. I know that you have saved my life, I would never, ever abandon you...
[/i]

[i]And maybe, just maybe...[/i], this thought was so unexpected that Sunset was
almost afraid to probe it further as if it were so ephemeral the very act of
thinking it may cause it to unravel.
[/i]...maybe she already had friends, and just did not know that.[/i]

"Shit!"

She sat up on her bed, startled,

"I hope I didn't screw up the kids too bad"

________________

INTERMISSION 1 (RED) - DREAMS AND REFLECTIONS

The world was drowning in red.

Red-hot power coursed through her veins, pain twisting her inside out. She was
riding it like a never-ending high of a drug, a power trip that seemed to go on
forever.

Red splatters on the walls of Canterlot Castle marked her passage, where she
destroyed the strongest of wizards and warriors of Equestria with a glance and a
gesture.

Red fire drowning the world outside, where her army turned night into a horrid
mockery of a day with numerous torches and fires, burning the town to ash and
cinder

Red skies of smoke and soot reflecting the conflagration below.

The world was drowning in red and fire and she was at the centre of it, the
blackness in the middle of the flames.

"You had a choice, Sunset." Twilight stood in front of the door to the throne room,
her hooves stubbornly dug into the marble floor, her horn shining with gathering
magics.

She was good. Sunset had to give credit where it was due - Twilight was strong.
Little princess’ spells, complex and filled to the brim with magic, managed to hurt
her - pinpricks of sensation atop the fire raging underneath Sunset's crimson skin,
both times Sunset allowed her to attack.

And then she hit back and kept hitting the little Princess until she fell, broken
and exhausted. And then kept hitting, while she tried to stand up, every strike
counterpointed by a sharp crack of bones breaking. And then she kept hitting her
while she tried to talk back. And then she kept it up until she stopped even
looking at the future ruler of Equestria.

And then she knelt oh-so-gently over the broken, cuddled-up grey figure, and gently
removed the bloody blonde mane. She got her lips so close to Derpy's ear that she
almost touched it, and started to whisper; explaining with crystal clarity and
perfect, vitriolic eloquence just how much the little pony has failed. How useless
she was. How she failed to protect her Princess, her world, her friends from
anything at all, and how everything that was her life would be undone, not for any
reason, but simply because Sunset could do it.

And once she was done, she knew that the pony that once offered her hand of
friendship would never get up. Her bones may heal and bruises fade, but her very
soul would forever stay poisoned by the blackness of her words.

Stepping over the broken purple body, she melted the heavy golden doors into the
throne room, her claws ripping the protective rainbow sheen of the defensive wards
like cobwebs, and entered, to face her Princess.

"Now you will forever be alone."

Pinkie Pie watched her sadly, powerless to stop her.

Futile threat. Ultimately, everyone was always alone.

She bashed the doors of red-gold open, melting the precious filigree and burning
the heavy wood.

Celestia sat on her throne, behind a desk - a huge, mahogany affair. Her rainbow
mane contrasted against snow-white skin so bright she was painful to look at. The
last defenders of Canterlot surrounded her, pointing their useless spears and horns
at her.

"So... You bring [i]this [/i]here. Again. I can't say I am surprised... but I
expected better even from you"

Even through the fire coursing in her veins that hurt. Those magenta eyes filled
not with fear or hatred but with nothing but sorrow seemed to pierce her very heart
-- if she still had one, that is.
[i]It doesn't matter. You can still be stronger than her.[/i]... red thoughts
filled her head and spilt out in a wave of fire unlike any that she has summoned
before.

A thick wave of crimson flames filled the room like a river, melting stone and
metal, seeking hungrily to devour living flesh. Screams of ponies burned alive
joined the crackle of the fire in a symphony worthy of Tartarus.

Celestia stood unfazed in the middle of the inferno, flames powerless to hurt the
Princess of the Sun.

"The stolen magics won't help you, Sunset" her tone was kind and compassionate as
if she were talking to a sick child, while she walked across the melted stone.

Another blast of fire as useless as the previous doused the room, and then another.
Stone turned into lava, glass shattered and the walls turned red-hot from the heat,
but it didn't even slow down the Princess.

She tried to summon her army - thousands of brainwashed ponies outside, her loyal
minions... and found no one would stand beside her.

"We don't stand with losers." Gilda helpfully explained, her wings folded across
her chest.

"You taught me better than that." Diamond agreed, her deformed claw adjusting the
tiara on her head. Silver just kept scribbling something down with her razor-sharp
nails, while she looked at Sunset as a peculiar case study.

Golden light shone from Princess' horn, obliterating the Element of Magic.

"I told you..."

Twilight's spell ripped off her wings, throwing Sunset to the ground.

"...no magic..."

Her voice grew coarser and higher, Rainbow Dash's words coming out of her mouth as
a cyan leg smashed her horn to bits

"..no demons, no voodoo will save you if you hurt my friends"

The gilded white hoof landed on her and kept pushing on her skull, making a
supernova of a headache, until her bones started to crack...

Sunset woke up with a scream. The world was drowning in red, the bloody sun rising
above the horizon, slowly yielding its crimson to the gold of the new day.

________________

CHAPTER 4 - THE GREETINGS

Sunset pulled her jacket tighter, trying to fend off the chilly morning breeze. As
warm as Canterlot autumns were, sitting on the stone stairs in the small hours of
the morning was starting to get to her. She shifted slightly and leaned against the
temporary cardboard screen, still covering the blown hole in the entrance of the
school in hopes of stealing some of the warmth from within the building.

Whatever sleep she got was filled with barely-remembered formless nightmares that
gave her no respite from yesterday's turmoils, and being summoned by Rarity’s text
message to the school almost an hour before the lessons were to start did not
improve her disposition at all. Right now she would seriously consider murder if it
were to buy her another fifteen minutes of dreamless slumber.

"Thank you [i]ever[/i] so much for coming, darling." Rarity passed her a white
thermos. "It means the world to me to have all of you here."

Sunset rubbed her eyes tiredly and gingerly took a sip from the thermos. Coffee -
caffeine, sugar and warmth, the very three things she needed right now. Rarity
truly was a lifesaver.

"Who are we waiting for, again?" she asked, passing the thermos to the girl next to
her.

"It's some fancy friend of Rarity's," Applejack answered after taking a sip.

"It's not fancy, it's Prench." Rarity hmph'd at Applejack's description and
snatched the thermos back for herself. "We did talk about it yesterday - Fleur Dis
Lee is a dear friend of mine, and she has recently moved to Equestria to be with
her boyfriend. Today is her first day at our school, and I simply have to make her
feel extra welcome..."

"How long 'till she arrives?" Rainbow Dash moaned after losing another tic-tac-toe
game to Pinkie. "This is getting boooring!".

"Aww, come on Dashie! Best hundred and seventy-nine out of three hundred and fifty-
seven?"

"Not anymore, I wager," Applejack noted, phlegmatically. "Look:" She pointed at a

car that entered the front yard, with an almost subsonic roar of the motor that
ripped apart the morning silence.

Not just a car. It was a thing of beauty and craftsmanship - its low-set profile
and streamlined, sleek black frame screamed of speed and force, the purr from under
the hood belying the power of the motor yearning to tear the road apart.

It was velocity and power incarnated into metal and plastic, black lightning tamed
and forged into the shape of a vehicle.
"Awesome..." Dash's coarse whisper expressed the common sentiment.

"I'm more of a motorcycle girl," Sunset admitted, "but… damn."

The car came to a sharp screeching stop, leaving a trail of tire marks on the
school lawn. The driver - a large white blonde twenty-something guy climbed out.
His shirt was shining white silk hugging tightly against his well-defined muscles
and contrasting brilliantly against the black of the car when he leaned against it.
[bd][be]

And though the car was hard to miss, and the driver was equally ostentatious, both
paled in comparison with the girl who stepped out.

She was, Sunset appreciated, irrefutably fair - large, almond-shaped eyes

underscored by an eyeliner, pink puff of hair and immaculate alabaster skin
matching that of her friend. Her clothes were impeccably assembled piece that was
the very definition of fashion overkill.

"EEE!!!", with a shoe-sale squeak, Rarity stuffed the thermos back into Sunset's
hands and ran off towards the car. "It's her!"

Others hesitated, unsure what to do.

"So, do y'all think we should go with her?"

"Uh, maybe, wait a little bit? If nobody minds, that is...."

"I really wanna know who's the beefcake with the awesome car."

Ignoring the hushed whispers of the other girls, Sunset tried to at least hear some
of the conversations between Rarity and her arrival.

At this distance, all she could get were bits and pieces, as the greetings and
cheek kisses turned into the regular pas de deux of courtesies.

"... you too look marvellous, ma cherie, tres magnifique"

"...and I assume that must be..."

Fleur's eyes shined with triumph, as she leaned against her boyfriend and half-
embracing him possessively.

"Oh, that's Blueblood... Earl Blueblood of Hollow Shades"

"Oh my," Rarity dropped into a curtsy "Pardon me, Your Lordship, I did not know..."

"It's quite alright, Miss Rarity." Blueblood waved his hand regally. "It is a
privilege of all beautiful women to be a bit air-headed. And please, just Lord
Blueblood would be quite enough."

"That's Blueblood?!" Sunset blurted out in surprise.

"Wait, you know this guy?" Rainbow Dash perked up "Come on, share with the class!"
"Err..well... not this guy exactly - the one in my Equestria. And he was about my
age, I think." She finished the last of her coffee and moved towards the car. "Come
on, let's take a closer look."

By the time they got there, Rarity was properly flustered, reaching and failing to
find any words. Desperate, she grabbed onto the appearance of her friends as a last
resort to find something to say.

"Girls, that's my friend Fleur Dis Lee, and [i]Lord[/i] Blueblood. Fleur, those are
the friends I wrote to you about. That's Fluttershy - "

"Welcome, um, to the Canterlot High, uhm, Miss Dis Lee, Mister Blueblood." The shy
girl peeked for a second from behind Applejack, before ducking back.

"...Pinkie Pie."

It took a sharp poke to the ribs to prevent Pinkie from bursting into one of her
random songs out of nowhere, but at least that one Rarity managed to salvage.

Her voice dropped lower with every introduction, a blush creeping up her face, as
she recognized the horrible mistake of introducing her more... rustic friends to a
Canterlot high noble. Having no other recourse, though, she braved on.

"[size=0.75em]Applejack[/size]....

"Howdy! That's some fancy car you got there."

"[size=0.5em]...and Rainbow Dash [/size]."

"The one and only! Can I have a spin on this baby? I wanna see what this thing can
do."

The girls quickly surrounded the new arrivals, assailing the pair with questions,
party invitations from Pinkie and introductions. Rarity's fluster grew in direct
proportion to Fleur's condescending smile, as Blueblood tried to disentangle
himself from the commoners assailing him with childish directness.

As fun as it would be to find out if someone could actually physically die of

embarrassment, Sunset still owed Rarity for yesterday's makeup rescue, not to
mention the coffee, so an intervention was in order. Not waiting for her
introduction, Sunset did a shadow of a curtsey, greeting the noble.

"Your Lordship, it is my honour as Student Body President to greet you to our

school as well as welcome Miss Dis Lee. We hoped we could show Fleur the school
before the classes properly start, perhaps you would care to join?"
[bf]

Words flowed easily, the rote formulas of court etiquette memorized through dozens
of boring Canterlot events barely requiring any thought, even after all these
years.

Grateful for the rescue, Blueblood took his chance to escape Rainbow Dash who was
almost drooling on his car, and replied: "In such a wonderful company, it would
certainly be my pleasure, Miss..."

He stretched out his hand towards her, a weird, effeminate gesture somehow halfway
between a handshake and an invitation to kiss his hand.

Sunset opted for the former. "Shimmer. Sunset Shimmer at your service. If it would
please Your Lordship and Miss Lee to follow me..."

A small touch of a cool white hand and a grateful look was all the thank you she
could get while she tried to keep both guests distracted, but it was more than
enough. It felt nice to be appreciated for once.

Giving a tour of the school was an easy thing - Sunset knew Canterlot High inside
and out, easily guiding the high guests through the halls and rooms of the school,
occasionally adding this or that tidbit of information or a funny story on top of
the basic trivia from the school booklet.

"…And here we have our small Hall of Fame, so to speak." The meagre stand with few
trophies and - Sunset silently cursed herself for attracting attention to the thing
- her photos from the Fall Formal Princess events.

Of course, that was exactly what caught the attention of the new arrival.

"Oh my, those dresses look lovely. You work I presume, ma cherie? Excellent work,
that garish crown hardly clashes with the dress at all."

“No, I have purchased it elsewhere” Sunset answered dryly, nonplussed. She liked
her dress, and it [i]did not[/i] clash with the crown.

“Oh, pardon moi” Fleur finally acknowledged Sunset’s existence. “But I cannot fail
to notice - there is no portrait for this year. Perhaps this year you would have
some competition?”

“I’d say t’ain’t too likely.” Applejack intervened “seeing how it already happened
a week ago, and Sunset here has had her frilly butt handed to her.” Giving Sunset a
look, she relented a bit “...er, no offence”

“None taken” Sunset grumbled. Not that she liked being reminded of the fact, but it
was the truth, so there was no point in getting upset. Still, her tone might have
become a bit more curt than was strictly demanded by the situation.

“Why, poor dear, your loss must vex you so!” Fleur tried to express her sympathy
”If I were to lose a title so precious, I do not know what I would do with such a
shame.” She smiled innocently. “But who, I must ask, is the current most beloved
student of the school?”

"She is no longer attending." Rarity took it upon herself to answer the last
question

"Such a pity. But that would mean there is no [i]Princesse [/i] in the school,
n'est-ce pas?"

"Well, she technically holds the title anyway, I suppose"

"Still, the idea sounds tres magnifique. Too bad I have missed it"
"Trust me, ye’r lucky," Applejack's comment forced a few sniggers from Rainbow, "It
kinda went real weird this year."[bg][bh][bi]

Desperate for a subject change, Sunset grasped for anything else to talk about. Her
tired brain kept drawing blanks until something came to her -- a wild memory from
the old life and the old world, a shot in the dark. She turned to Blueblood.

"How is your uncle if I may ask? Does His Grace still maintain his Hindian habit?”

"Oh yes, quite so..." Blueblood answered absentmindedly, taking his eyes off
Rarity's... skirt, before the full implications of the question hit him. The girls
(the more socially apt ones anyway) were faster on the uptake. Both Rarity and
Fleur turned to stare at Sunset as if she suddenly grew a second head.

"If you don't mind me asking," Blueblood probed cautiously, once he caught up "How
do you know my uncle and his habits?"

That was the downside of her choice of subject. Increasing the pacing slightly, she
played for time.

"I used to live in the Canterlot City centre, some time ago. You get to meet all
sorts of people there, Your Lordship. The Count was… very kind to me once.”

Finally, one last turn around the corner and her salvation was in view.

"... and that brings us to the final part of the tour, the Principal's office. I do
believe Miss Fleur has some paperwork to fill out before the classes start." She
did not let Blueblood or Fleur add another word, herding them through the door.
"And I'm absolutely sure, Prince... Principal Celestia would be absolutely thrilled
to see her favourite nephew."

Closing the door and slumping against it in case they do try to get out, she was
almost ready to sigh in relief... only face all the girls surrounding her, with
burning curiosity in their eyes.

"How do you know Blueblood? You simply must tell us, darling" - Rarity tried to
sound composed, and even disinterested, but Sunset was not fooled - with how much
she piqued her interest, Rarity would get her answers even if she'd have to pry it
off Sunset's cold, dead corpse. And others would help her hold Sunset down while
she did it.

"Well, if you want to know... " Sunset took a few steps forward, getting out of the
circle of her friends and urging them to follow her. "You'll just have to meet me
after school to hear it."

"Sunset Shimmer!" Rarity's shout followed her across the corridors as she ran off,
laughing silently. She may have resolved to no longer be a bully, but she was still
allowed an occasional sadistic streak, right?

Besides, there was something... nice about having Rarity wait for her, and despite
the heavy topic of their discussion and curiosity was a great way to get her to do
it again. Perhaps today she'd have something to actually look forward to after her
detention.
________________
CHAPTER 5 - THE BULLIES

All the elation she felt, however, instantly vanished when she came up to her
locker.

[i]Well, there it is.[/i]

Despite the lessons being good fifteen minutes ahead, someone already came into the
school and wrote something on her locker with red spray paint. Something she was
sorely tempted to believe was "witch". Sunset sighed. However unpleasant a reminder
of her situation it was, if that's the worst these kids could come up with, then
this would be an easy ride.

Ignoring the giant red word on her locker, she quickly packed her bag, before the
other girls would find her and try to pry some details when--

"Hey, Sunset!”

She turned her head towards the noise—then her face exploded with pain when a
soccer ball appeared out of nowhere to smack her square in the nose.

“Oh no. Look out.” Raindrops droned with no apparent lack of urgency, coming to
pick up her soccer ball. “You should be careful -- accidents happen in the halls
quite a lot.”

If that weren’t just the first symptom of much bigger problems, Raindrops’ attempt
to be threatening would have been adorable, really. As it were, Sunset was tired,
her nose рulsed with annoying throbbing pain, and she had no time for amateurs. She
moved towards the offender, invading her personal space.

[color=#be4343]Yes, Raindrops, they do. I [i]made[/i] quite a few happen

myself.[/color]

Despite her smaller stature, Sunset leaned over the athlete menacingly, the girl’s
fear making her shrink in Sunset’s presence.

“And we wouldn’t want something to happen to you, would we now?” She finished,
ripping the ball out of the athlete’s hands.

“I...I’m not afraid of you!” To the girl's credit, she may have been scared, but
she did her best to try to hide it. ”Nobody is! Twilight showed us that we don’t
have to be scared of you anymore…”

“Hey, Sunset, ‘Drops, what’s going on?” The annoying raspy voice announced Rainbow
Dash catching up to Sunset. “Are you trying to bully my teammate?” She asked
suspiciously. “‘Cause if you are…”
“Rainbow, please, I am sure it’s just a misunderstanding. Isn’t that right,
darling?” Rarity put her hand on the jock’s shoulder.

“She started it” Sunset answered tartly. “See?” - she presented the ball and
pointed at her still bruised nose.

“Give it here” Rainbow grabbed Sunset’s nose.

“Hey! That hurt!”

“Oh shush, you big baby.” She gave it a little twist and ran her fingers around the
bruise “Suck it up. It’s not broken or twisted, so you’re fine.”

“Well, I still think an apology would be in order,” Rarity passed Sunset her
handkerchief.

“Yeah, that was not cool.” Rainbow Dash agreed. “It’s not really a prank, hitting
someone with a ball.”

“Yes, quite,” Rarity at least seemed encouraged by her support. “What would
Twilight think of your behaviour? Is that what she would want from our school?”

Rainbow Drops stepped back, but said nothing, pressing her lips tight together.

"Maybe I should call Lightning Dust over…" Sunset asked. Her tone was light, but
the meaning -- that wasn't quite as innocent. "She knows well what happens when
accidents are caused in the halls. In fact[bj], there she is."

"Sunset." Lighting Dust waved at her. But there was something in her eyes that made
Sunset regret calling her over. "What's up?" Lighting Dust, before loitering
somewhere behind, suddenly stepped up towards Raindrops. "You playing in the halls
again, 'Drops?"

"I-- it was just a prank." Surrounded by the team captain and the most famous
athlete delinquent, Raindrops now looked completely outnumbered. "I didn't mean
to--"

"Well, if it was a joke," Lightning Dust smirked. "Makes sense to me. We athletes
play rough, right, Crash? I’m sure big bad Shimmer can take it.” Lightning Dust
stood by Raindrops, and looked at Sunset with a challenge. “Can’t you, Shimmer?”

So. It was treason, then. Sudden, but, ultimately, expected.

"Oh, I can take it. Unlike some people I know." Sunset looked at her. "We wouldn't
want something to happen to someone else, would we?"
[bk]
"Oh yeah?" Lighting stepped forward, "Why not?!"

"Because," Sunset smirked, looking behind the athlete. "Mine are bigger than
yours."

“Rarity!” Spot, who, despite his name, was rather hard to spot, tipped his kettle-
bell hat towards the girl. “I can just swear your radiance increases every
mornin’”[bl]

Rarity gave him a weak smile and scooched away a step.

"Don't ut, boyos?" He asked his brothers

Fido and Rover, unlike him however, were not hard to spot at all. Quite the
opposite - with their linebacker-size they tended to loom, and right now, they
loomed right over Lightning Dust. [bm]

“I hope you ladies dun mind if I steal Shimmer from your pleasant company? There’s
school business I would like to discuss with her in private.”

Lightning wanted to say something, but thought better of it. Given the quiet
looming of the muscle surrounding her, the balance of forces was clearly not in her
favour, so instead, she opted for retreat, dragging Raindrops along with her.

“I swear, I have no idea what bug bit them today!” Rainbow tried to defend the
athletes to Rarity. “Lightning is usually totally cool, and Dropsy is, like, one of
the nicest people I know.”

Sunset threw her a look worth all the words, before stepping away to follow Spot.

"Shimmer..." He reached to take off his hat but stopped halfway, landing awkwardly
to rub the back of his neck, "me an' the boys, we growing concerned. After that
thin’ y’did at the Formal, and th’ whole losing thing, we thinkin’ you don’t got
what it takes no more."

"I have everything under control,” Sunset said evenly. ”We'll be back to business
as usual in no time. Just keep your brothers on the leash. You can still do that,
yes?"

“Do you, though, Shimmer? We thinkin’ maybe we don’t need to listen to you no more.
Maybe I tell you to shove it? Maybe I tell me boys to toss you about a bit, eh?”

"Well, maybe you do.” Sunset agreed. “And maybe after that, I go visit your Momma.
Maybe I mention to Ma Barker, that her boys have been chasing girls and bullying
kids for loose change instead of going to classes, and getting in trouble in this
school she spent so much effort to put you in. How about that?"

Spot paled and gulped nervously.

"Now, c'mon Shimmer, ain't no need for the nukular option. I did ye a solid right
now, didn’t I. I'm just sayin', me and th’ boys here, we concerned for ye, right?
We thinkin, maybe..."

"Don't think Spot -- that's my job. You'll get your dues." She stared him down.
“Just keep your brothers out of trouble. You can still do that, right?”

"I s’pose I can do this, aye. But Shimmer--" his voice trembled, for a second,
before straightening out, "you better deliver come the end of the month.[bn] Or I
ain’t responsible for what happens next."

He turned, and disappeared back, his brother following him like dogs on a leash.
Sunset stayed behind. She felt weak -- suddenly so drained she had to lean against
the wall, feeling the cool walls of the Canterlot High against her temple.

“Sunset? Are you alright?”

It was all fine.

She was fine…

She was fine. She had a plan. At least parts of it.

But... the thought echoed in her head with sharp, piercing pain through her
temples. Did she have the right plan? Should she even be having the plan? After all
that she did, how all her other plans ended…

The headache flared, and the walls of the school seemed to get closer, crowding at
her, as everyone turned to look straight at her, watching, waiting, preparing to--

“Darling?” Rarity called her out again.

[i]Breathe[/i]

Right. Nobody was looking. The students all moved around in their usual inter-class
student herds hurrying to their lessons, and the walls stood immovable where they
were supposed to.

“Hm? Yes. Yes, I’m fine.” Sunset took a deep breath, clenching her fists so that
the stupid human hands would stop shaking. "Just some leftover business. By the way
-- Spot really likes you, y'know."

"Oh I know, believe me." Rarity made a face. "I guess I can't really blame him, but
he's really not my type." She coughed delicately. “Now darling, about that thing
that happened before. I was meant to ask you -- if you don’t mind that is…” she
tried to come up with a way to mask her burning curiosity. “About how you know…”

"Not right now." Not when her voice still felt alien to her, and she didn't trust
her hands not to shake, and the memories still threatened to come back with a
vengeance, splitting her head with a headache.

“But darling, you must--”

The bell rang, shrill, loud and obnoxiously long.

"Ah," she made an expression that should pass for a smile. "Saved by the bell".
With that, she escaped, leaving the frustrated girl behind.

[center]***[/center]

Class time scattered away like ash, slipping between her fingers, no matter how
much she tried to hold it in her hand, dissolved into a haze of a familiar, semi-
pointless routine of the lessons, punctured by an occasional episode of petty
childish revenge.

A spitball launched from the back benches. A semi-legible note scribbled on her
desk she’d spend five minutes trying to rub out -- more out of the numb feeling of
emptiness than because it really hurt. A piece of gum stuck to her chair, a glance,
an insult, a refusal to pass a book or meet her eyes.

It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

It just made her feel cold, and empty, as she stepped from class to class, trying
to ignore the headache crackling like static somewhere behind her eyes, until the
lessons of the morning were over, and she was in the cafeteria.

Until making her way through the crowd, she bumped into the boy.

“Hey.”

Flash was never really good with words. Not even on his best day. Today was not his
best day. Not their best day, at least -- he would still not look her in the eyes,
not look at her at all. He tried to follow up the “hey” with something else, but
words got lost somewhere halfway between his brain and his throat.
“Hey,” she answered instead.

They stood there, in the middle of the crowd, not-looking at each other awkwardly,
as seconds ticked by.

"How have yo--"

"What's u--"

They grew silent again.

"I wanted to talk to you." He finally said. "Ask you, er... If you don't mind." He
rubbed his neck awkwardly. "Do you know if..." he hesitated when asking. "When is
Twilight coming back?"

Oh.

"Flash, I..."

That question was probably bothering a lot of people because around her the noise
of the crowd lost a few decibels, and now everybody was looking at her.

And she had a plan.

"I do know." She admitted, raising her voice ever so slightly above the cafeteria
din. "We talked. After the Fall Formal. And she," a cruel, familiar smirk on her
lips, a half-glance to the audience, "is not coming back."

Gasps went out into the crowd, ripples of fear and confusion.

"What?"
"No way!"
"Why?"
"But who will..."

The eyes settled on her.

"It's just us, boys and girls. You." her smirk went up a notch. "And me."

She nodded to him and walked past, through the crowd that split before her as if
she were a leper. And if Sentry wanted to say anything else, he did not.

But at least she managed not to look back.

Small victories, and all that.

She found a table - either not yet taken, or, perhaps emptied as she approached.
She tended to have that effect on people… at least before her fall from her throne,
and sat down, staring at the tabletop, and closed her eyes.

All she had left to do was wait. Not plot, not scheme - just wait. Alone, with her
thoughts.

She closed her eyes. Here, sitting alone, in the middle of the room, she felt like
a spider, in the centre of the web, sitting there, listening, not so much to the
words as to the general vibrations of the cafeteria discussions.

To the murmurs. To the whispers. To the footsteps. Tentative. Slow. Stopping right
by her table.

"Sunset?" She opened her eyes slowly.

Three of them. She evaluated each in turn, taking her time to make them feel her
gaze. Aqua Blossom, Roseluck and Coco - Coco something-or-other, one of those too
quiet to remember or care about. Suri Polomare, the queen bee of the fashion clique
conspicuously absent.

Interesting.

Something inside her moved her lips into a smile, red and predatory. The one she
was taught, once. The one that made them feel she was looking down on them, even
though she was sitting. "How can I help you, girls?"

“Um, hi, Sunset,” Roseluck started, pushed in front by the other two. “We wanted
to…”

“Give you something.” Blossom continued.

“A gift.” Coco spoke last, still looking down, so quiet you could barely hear her.

“Please.”

She looked at the proffered item,slowly, as if the very notion was beneath her. A
box with a hastily tied ribbon on it… A gift. Well, a bribe, at least.

“We thought that s-since, the princess--” Aqua Blossom started again, shifting
uneasily under her gaze.

“T-t-t-twilight,” Roseluck quickly interjected.

“--isn’t coming back…” Aqua trailed off.

“W-we thought th-that,” Coco swallowed. “With the new Student Body President
elections coming up...”

“You’d want something nice. To wear. Er.. not that your clothes aren’t already
nice.” Suri added, tones of panic creeping in.

“Yes, very nice. Great even.”

“Perfect!”

Cowards. Already whatever power the little princess used on them was fading, and
they came running to prostrate themselves before the only other master they knew.

Disgust welled from within, and her headache came back with a vengeance, like ice
picks stabbing through her temples, and she felt so drained all of a sudden.

“Thank you girls.” Headache or not, this much she could do by rote -- a warm tone
of voice that would make her seem grateful, yet imply that it was no more than she
was due, a touch to the forearm as she took the gift, a little nod to let them know
that they did the right thing, and won’t be going to the chopping block… not before
others at least. “The fashion clique can always count on the Student Body
President’s support.”

Those smiles… half-fake, half-relief, as they backed out, mumbling some gratitudes
and obeisances. It just made it so, so much worse.

[i]I did that.[/i]

It was what she did to them. She took real, living humans, and reduced them to
this. Snivelling, spineless…things, who only knelt because she made them unable to
stand.

[red]And it was glorious.[/red] An angry, red-hot thought snuck by, making her
headache flare up again, like hot spokes stabbing into her temples.She should've
pushed them harder. She should have hurt them. Made them grovel, made them beg.

[red]She would have enjoyed that too.[/red]

"Hello, darling," Rairty put her tray on the table, and sat down next to Sunset.
"How are you feeling?"

“Hm?” She raised her head towards Rarity, even as she stuffed the new acquisition
towards the bottom of her backpack. “I–"
"Heya, Sunset. I saw your locker,” AJ's tray bent under the weight of the food.
”That stuff ain't right.” She sat down across from Rarity, “I'm sure the folks who
did that are ashamed of themselves right now. But I cleaned it up nonetheless.
Ain't no one in this school gotta go through this no more."

"Hey, Shimmer." Rainbow dropped next to her, digging for the Tupperware in her bag,
"I talked to the girls in the team, and no one else is gonna bother you. If they
do, you just tell me, I'll show them what for!"

"Heey, girls! I just…" Pinke dropped an armful of candy bard and juice boxes on the
table, immediately using her freed hands to wave frantically, "Fluttershy!
FLUTTERSHY! Are you gonna sit with us?"

"Oh," Fluttershy said, after shot deliberation, and a not-very-subtle look towards
the Ecos table and Sandalwood and sighed. "...yes."

"You're… here. All of you." Sunset said numbly. Sure, they were there in the
morning, but that was for Rarity… and not like they talked. But now, after learning
who she was, after seeing what the cost of friendship with her is they still showed
up.

"We heard what Pinkie here had to tell us. And we voted. “ Applejack grumbled. "The
ayes had it. You're our friend now."

She didn't need to ask – all it took was a glance to dissect the uneasy moment of
silence that hung over the table into Fluttershy's eyes hid behind a veil of pink
hair. Pinkie's smile. Rarity's nigh-imperceptible nod, Rainbow Dash rolling her
eyes before being distracted by something shiny somewhere... They were all so
obvious.

"Don’t I get a vote?" She had to give them an out. No matter how much she didn't
want to.

"No."

“Well, um.” She tried to find words, but nothing rote, nothing she ever practised
for, in this life or her past had somehow seemed appropriate. “Thank you. I… don’t
know what to say.”

"Just be square with us, sugarcube. That's all we ask."

"And don't do those horrible mean things you used to do," Pinkie added prudently.
"Then we're gonna be the bestest best friends!" Impossibly she wrapped her arms
around the entire group and pulled everyone together
"Yay." Fluttershy wheezed. Or maybe it was just air escaping her lungs -- say what
you want about Pinkie, but the girl could [i]hug[/i]

"Heh." Sunset laughed. It was more relief than actual laughter, but suddenly it
just felt good. ”Yay.”

"So, darling," soon as they had settled, Rarity finally pounced with a question
she'd been looking to ask since the morning. "You must tell us about how you
know... about the Blueblood. Have you not tortured us enough?"

“Oh.” Sunset looked at Pinkie. “Yes. Enough.”

“Bad choice of words.” Rarity touched her forearm, reassuring. “But please. You
gotta tell us! We’re dying to know.”

“Ain’t none of my business if you don’t want to tell, sugarcube.”

Sunset shook her head. “No, I… I’m fine.” she cleared her voice, “Well, you know
that Twilight is not really from around here, right?"

"We had an inkling." Applejack nodded. "An' Pinkie had one of her Pinkie hunches."

"And the whole deal with the magic, and the portal, and when you went all ‘grr, I'm
going to smash the portal’, and ‘whoosh’ with the fire, the portal went all ‘woo’
and the rainbow magic!"

"And you turned into a demon, and tried to brainwash the whole school, that was a
clue," Rainbow added. "No offence."

"I'...” One did not deny the truth. “None taken. But, well, the long story short.
I'm from the same place. And there, I lived in the Canterlot. In the castle--”

"Ooh, are you a princess?! Like Twilight?"

“Are you a pony?!”

“Pinkie!”

“What? Maybe she’s a unicorn! I heard,” she lowered her voice, still brimming with
childlike wonder, “they’re so fluffy you could die.”

"Well, yes. Erm, I am.” Sunset shrugged off the silent stares. “Everyone's a pony
back home. Well, I mean, in Equestria. The other Equestria, that is. Unicorns,
pegasi, earth ponies. Bunch of other creatures too, if you want to nitpick. But
mostly ponies.”

“So.. Pinkie was right.” Applejack scratched her head. “Figure that.”
“Yeah, she does that,” Rainbow added. “No idea how.”

“Spot on.” Sunset nodded sagely. “Well, we aren’t that fluffy, though.”

“Aww.”

“So, you’re a unicorn.” Rainbow snickered. “Big bad Sunset Shimmer, is a floofy
magical unicorn princess from another dimension.”

“I’m not a princess.” Sunset shook her head. "I'm not even nobility....well, I
had... maybe even still have a title, but it was just a courtesy thing. I was a
student of the Princess, though, so I lived in a castle."

"Oh my." Rarity sighed wistfully. "But I'm so envious! Growing up in a palace, with
nobles all around you, the glamour, the sophistication! I have always dreamed of
living there. I can't wait to hear all about it."

"T'aint natural," Applejack scoffed. "Having servants and all that, running around
to do stuff for you. That's bound to warp a fella something fierce."

"Yeah, no thank you." Rainbow snorted. "Stuffy palaces and they probably have all
those frilly dresses, and bowing. Eugh." She made a face.

"Yeah." Sunset agreed. "Palaces and nobles did not agree with me. Or I with them.
But I ended up knowing a lot about them -- and some of them have their doubles,
living their lives here. Similar, but not quite identical - more like echoes and
correspondences than a mirror image."

"Twilight did mention that she knew our doppelganger from her own world… and then
Blueblood and his uncle were also there? But as ponies?"

"Yes. I used to see little boy Blue a lot, growing up - we played together as kids.
I once even tried to check if his blood was really blue." She chuckled. "I got
grounded for a week after that."

For some reason, nobody else found this anecdote funny.

"Ehem. Right. The point is, that's how I know him. Or, rather not him, exactly,
just the other him from Equestria. Who is very similar. So I made a guess, and
well, it worked out.”

“I see.” If Rarity was relieved or disappointed she probably wasn’t sure herself.
[bo][bp]
"Ooh, ooh, my turn!" Pinkie raised her hand. "Do I get to ask a question now!?"

"Err, sure, Pinkie. Ask away."

"What's with the present? Is it your birthday? Should we have brought gifts too? Is
it okay that I asked three questions? Or four? Or fi--"

"Pinkie, what are you even talking about?" Rainbow even stopped chewing for a
second, trying to figure out where and what the present was.

"I got an ear twitch, and an eye-twitter and then a nose wiggle. That means there's
a secret present somewhere in the vicinity, and then I saw the box in your backpack
when I came to the table, and so I wondered - is it your birthday? And then I
realised I don't know when your birthday is, and I wanted to ask that but Rarity
was already asking her questions so I--"

"Oh, it's a scarf. Meh." Rainbow leaned over and snatched the box out of Sunset’s
bag, peeking inside. "Who would even give a scarf as a gift? That's lame."

"Rainbow! It’s a perfectly nice accoutrement and a very nice gift. It even has the
same symbol that you always wear," Rarity took over the contents of the box, and
inspected it, running her hand across the image of a half-red sun patched onto the
scarf. "See darling? People are never as bad as you think they are. Or maybe you
have a secret admirer? Are you getting back with Flash?"

She examined the scarf. "Though they could use some care with their needlework.
This could have used a bit more time on the..." she petered out. "...well. That is
Coco's handiwork, is it not? I would recognize that cross-stitch anywhere."

"Err.."

"I know that girl." Applejack said levelly. "She's one of those girls you kept
bullying. Ain't no way no how she's your secret admirer."

"Aww." Pinkie's floof became somehow less floofy, as she pushed away the empty box.
"It's not a gift is it? And I bet it's not even your birthday!"

"No, Pinkie, it ain't. It's a bribe." AJ looked at Sunset. “Ain’t it?”

"It is. From Suri, and the fashion clique." Sunset sighed. "For the Student Body
President elections coming up."

"Well, with the elections coming up you would need to look your best." Rarity
shrugged, packing the scarf back into the box. "But this is not Coco’s best work, I
must say. Maybe pop by the Carousel Club after lessons, and we'll find you
something to match?"
"Rarity!" Applejack’s voice rose a few tones.

"What?" Rarity fluttered her eyelashes. "Friends are supposed to support each
other, are they not? And if Sunset is to be a School Body President, and she'll
make important decisions for the clubs, so, it only makes sense to balance the
scales, as it were."

"She shouldn't have taken that scarf in the first place!"

"Well, what else was she supposed to do? Refuse to take a gift? This way, Sunset
gets to be impartial, at least!"

"And she,” Applejack pointed at Sunset “gets a bunch of stuff that don't rightly
belong to her. Tell it how it is -- it ain't a gift, it's another bribe!"

"Well, I never!"

"Athletes aren't playing these games, Shimmer.” Rainbow scowled. “I told you
before and--"[bq][br]

"Athletes? We're back to cliques now? I thought we were done with that nonsense."
Rarity hmph’d. "Just like you to cut and run back to your little circle of jocks."

“Girls…” Sunset tried to intervene.

"That's just like you to turn away when things get tough." Applejack shook her
head. "I knew it wouldn't last this time either."

"Hey! I would never leave my friends hanging!"

"Girls! "

"Well, you left me!" Fluttershy said bitterly. "And I thought we were friends."

"That's her fault!" Rainbow pointed accusingly at Sunset. "She put her daemon mind-
whammy on me or something!"

"You know full-well she did no such thing, sugarcube. It was all you!"

"Says miss ‘I don't care about anything except my apple--’”

"GIRLS!"
"WHAT?!" they all finally turned to her.

"I'm giving it away!

That stopped it. At least she didn't have to shout... too loudly. There was a
chance other's didn't hear it yet.

"All of it. Not just the scarf. The crown, the keys to the kingdom -- the whole
nine yards." the girls were staring now, but the words kept rushing out. "I can't.
Not anymore. I just need to... I have to be better. To do better." She took a
breath, her hand touching her left shoulder. "That's the plan."
CHAPTER 6 - THE NEGOTIATIONS
The girls looked at her silently waiting for her to elaborate.

“Look,” she started, trying to put her thoughts together. “This.. “ she raised the
scarf - the gift-bribe-offering - “Is not just--”

"Heya, er, Sunset." Snivelling and Sy... Snips and Snails, that was their actual
names, pushed a tray of cafeteria food before of her, like an offering. "Here's
your food."

"Sorry it took so long," the other one added.

All the girls watched Sunset, as she picked up the tray awkwardly, putting it in
front of her.

"And would that," Rarity pointed at the tray as if it were a live toad, "be the
sort of thing you'd be trying to give up?"

"How can you possibly expect us to believe you're trying to change when you still
get your toadies to bring your food?" Applejack was a bit less diplomatic. "You
gotta..."

"Errm," Snips corrected her gingerly. "We're Silver's minions."

"She was very clear about it", Snails added, some vision of terror past playing
behind his beady, vacant eyes. "Very clear."

Sunset glared, and the kids sensibly chose to stop talking and retreat back into
the gaggle of freshmen.

She looked at the food apprehensively. It did smell good, and she hadn’t eaten
anything… for a while now.
She picked up the fork. Then put it back down. Another bribe. Well, this one was
more of a gift from her little students, but still it was just as much a
proclamation of fealty. One of the vestiges of the old order, of her old power.

"Oh just eat it." Applejack grumbled. "No sense in wasting good food. Just maybe
get your own stuff next time - you ain't no princess no more. And this ain't a
castle with servants either."

"Applejack!" Rarity reproached her.

"What? She ain't, is she?"

[bs][bt]

"You could have used [i]some[/i] tact!"

“This Is precisely what I’m talking about,” she said, poking the salad with the
fork for emphasis. “Getting rid of it is the plan.”

"You don't really need a plan for it, darling," Rarity said gently. "I can come
with you to the girls, explain that you don’t need to take gifts. That you’re no
longer the person you used to be."

"It's not that simple."

"It can be if you want it to." Applejack shrugged. "Telling the truth ain't always
easy, but 'tis always simple."

"Sometimes you just need a spoonful of sugar!" Pinkie put about that much sugar on
her candy bar, before swallowing it whole. "Or maybe a bowlful." she licked her
lips and considered the rest of the sugar on the table pensively. "Want some?"

"No, no, that's... you don't get it, do you?” She turned, waving at the cafeteria.
“Look at them. I mean, really, look.”

She could see it plain as day: The cliques were coming back in vogue. Or perhaps
they haven't vanished in the first place.

The fashion was sitting nicely around all the popular students’ tables, guarding
their precious ‘in-crowd’ status. Suri Polomare, the queen bee of the fashionistas
-- pointedly not coming in person to deliver the gift -- fretting over Fleur.

Lightning Dust gathering her forces: athletes giggling over something - not too
hard to figure out what. Raindrops did not look especially comfortable being the
object of athlete adoration, but that was just a matter of time. Gilda was there as
a counterbalance, at least. Not so much talking as quietly looming, the bigger
girl’s mere presence reminding everyone that there may be a price for a joke gone
too far.

Sandalwood and Microchip at one table. Nerds and hippies mixing around them, with
their uneasy, awkward banter. An alliance brewing - with the tables moved around
them in circles reminded of a herd, horns pointed outside, warding away predators.

The predators would be the athletes on one side, and on the other - Spot and his
brothers, staring daggers at Cherry Crush and her punk gaggle of girls, all
piercings and heavy metal-studded boots, and occasional sideways glare towards her.
Measuring, weighing, waiting to find her lacking.

"Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does politics. If I step down, someone will take my
place. And they will tear this school apart trying to figure out who. Unless I fix
it.”

"I think you just see the worst in people.” Rarity tried her encouraging smile.
“Maybe some generosity is in order, hmm? I'm sure our school can surprise you if
you just let them."

"You mean "surprise her again" right?"

"Beg pardon?"

"You know," Rainbow waved her hand, "the whole thing with the friendship laser was
pretty surprising the first time around." she giggled "I really did not see it
comi--

"Hey, don't hit!" she rubbed her forearm after a mock-punch from Applejack. "No
offence."

"None taken." Sunset grumbled.

"Anyway, Rare's right. You gotta trust people. Might as well start here."

"I..." she had a plan. She was so sure of it, but she was sure before. And she had
been wrong. She had to do better. She had to be better, and… and not be a monster
any more

She closed her eyes, as her breath hitched, and muscles cramped, fingers gripping
the table with a dead man's grip. She could feel it, with every cell of her body,
the gazes of the student, looking at her, remembering, judging, the memories of her
past swelling in her memory like a black tsunami...
[bu]

"Darling?"
She breathed, a half-sobbing inhale, forcing the air, the smells of stale food and
cheap plastic into her lungs, and beating down the memories.

"Yeah. Yeah, you’re probably right," she said, "Just give back the scarf. Nothing
more."

"That's right," Rarity nodded. “We'll go together, right after scholl, yes?"

Sunset nodded.

It’s a shame to return a gift though.”

"Maybe a thank you? Being polite is never bad," Fluttershy suggested.

"S'long as it comes from the heart,” Applejack added. "Ain't worth nothing if it's
fake."

"We'll come with,” Rainbow declared. "Just in case."

[center]***[/center]

Before that, however, there were still more classes to attend - a welcome lull
between dealing with her messes. Here she could concentrate on nothing in
particular, listening to the pointless droning of the teachers, and let the set
ritual of classes calm the sense of …wrongness that followed her ever since this
morning.

Usually, she liked History -- it was one of the few subjects she did not already
know and it was fun trying to tease out the correlations, the parallels between
this world and Equestria.

And Mr Hooves was a good teacher when he could afford to go off the script. He had
a way of talking about the events of the past that made history come alive. As if
he himself had travelled through time, to see all those historical figures, witness
all those events.

And today was one of those days.

“Dreams.” Mr Hooves said, correcting his glasses. “Do they matter? Can a dream
change the world?" he asked, rhetorically. "Not a vision of the future, not a wish
- a dream that most of us have every night and forget come the morning?"

He paused for effect.

"Imagine if you will, that some time ago, Emperor Coltstantine does not wake up one
morning, having seen the Fire of Friendship in his dream."

"He does not change his reign. Roam remains steeped in internal violence, the
ichtyans and pagans, plebeians and patricians fighting among themselves. The new
Breezeanteum never becomes the centre of learning and diplomacy, and instead
becomes another seat of power, perhaps - theocratic or sectarian. And when Attilla
the Unifier comes in, he is not greeted as a friend, but as a barbarian and an
enemy."

He swished dramatically, his scarf billowing behind him, his gestures growing
wider, as he grew more agitated.

"Imagine the war. Roam, falling. Sacked, burned, and abandoned, the whole empire
ripped in two or conquered entirely. Libraries lost, single language broken into
thousand dialects and instead of ten centuries of empire and peace - a thousand
years of dark ages cover the continent."

"All because of one dream that never came.

"Now, if you open your textbooks on page twelve, we will begin to learn about the
history of Roam, and the intricacies of its inner crisis before we can discuss what
could have been otherwise."

Sunset sighed and looked away. The next fifteen minutes would be consumed by re-
treading the textbook for the benefit of those who somehow got to high school
without ever learning to read.

Which left her staring at the long-since-read textbook, alone with her thoughts.
The only place she really didn’t want to be right now.

She reached for the phone instead.

The school groups were still abuzz, the news she delivered in the cafeteria echoing
like shockwaves through a hundred threads and chats.

“Twilight’s gone!”

"What are we going to do?"

"Every time she looks at me..."

"Stay strong. Together we can--"

"Why would Principals allow her to stay?!"

“She got scott-free again! Barely a slap on the wrist.”

"She should have left the school."

"She should just off herse--"

"Sunset," Mr Hooves was standing over her, now, his eyes looking at the phone in
her hand with silent reproach. "Do you want to tell us about the meaning of kleoth
aphthiton in Roaman culture?"

"Hm?" she looked at him sheepishly and flicked the phone closed. "Er, sure. But
that’s not Roaman idea, it goes all the way to minotoans. Kλέος ἄφθι^τος -- eternal
glory. An ancient Minoan hero earned kleos through great deeds, up to and including
his own death.

“Marestrates, burning the temple of Luna, the three hundred going to stop the
Pershian invasion, all the heroes of the Filliad - it was all about seeking glory
eternal.” She made a vague gesture at the textbook. “In Roaman times, the idea
changed -- instead of personal glory, they sought glory for the Pax Roama, for the
Empire."

"It's a bit silly isn't it?" she sighed. "All that time seeking glory eternal, and
now they're nothing but dust and few lines in a history book, their empire - gone
in all but memory. They should've searched for happiness instead."

"Miss Shimmer is correct if a bit cynical." Mr Hooves nodded, moving on towards the
front of the class. "But there were many ways of achieving kleos. Deeds of renown
without peer - many were martial, but science, art and even politics were all ways
of achieving eternal glory. And as we have just seen for Roaman citizens..."

Sunset considered going back to her phone, but it would not be really fair to Mr
Hooves. And it’s not like she had anything uplifting to find there.

She sighed.

"Psst."

She doodled a tiny little pony on the margin of the textbook. Twenty-five more
minutes.

"Psst. Sunset."

She tried to ignore Sandalwood's urgent whispers. She just had to get through this
lesson. Then meet the girls for the apologies, and---

"Sunset, please." he threw a piece of paper at her.

“What!” she hissed, half-turning towards him.

“I need your help.”

MAYBE SANDALWOOD
LOOKING FOR DEFENCE AGAINST LD AND CC
[bv]
DR HOOVES STOPS THE CONVERSATION
LESSON ENDS
MR HOOVES ASKS HER TO STAY BEHIND
CONVERSATION BETWEEN DR HOOVES AND HER
[bw][bx]
WHERE WE SEE HER AS TEACHERS FAVORITE
SHE GOES TO APOLOGISE TO FASHION GIRLS
[by][bz]
THAT ACTUALLY SCARES THEM MORE
THEY GROVEL AND TRY TO FIGURE OUT WHAT THEY DID WRONG
BUT LYRA TELLS THEM TO GROW A SPI
[ca][cb][cc]
BON-BON SORT OF LURKS THERE
IMPLY THAT SUNSET KNOWS THINGS ABOUT HER
BUT WHEN SUNSET SAYS NOTHING THERE’S SOME UNDERSTANDING
SUNSET GETS THE IDEA
BUT IT’S LIKE NOT OBVIOUS THAT SHE GOT THE IDEA
ARGUES WITH LYRA
THEREBY GOADING HER INTO DECLARING FOR SBP
CHAPTER 7 - THE APOLOGIES
Girls take her on an impromptu? Apology tour, and kinda abuse her apologetic state,
despite her not being very comfortable about it. But as they go along, Sunset
realises that she does have things that need closure, especially with her Princess
If I can come up with a Derpy apology, that’d be cool.
It’s the end of the day, sunset is at the locker, and prepares to go to detention.

Another day. Another little conga of small humiliations.

Only the detention left.

SOMETHING
[cd]

“How are you, darling?” Rarity caught her after lessons, as she was putting her
books away into her clean -- for now -- locker.

“I’m fine.” she wasn’t, but it didn’t matter. The nightmares couldn’t hurt her. Not
really. “Today wasn’t that bad.”

“I should hope so. You just have to give them time.”

"Umm." Rarity looked down. "Well, there were club activities. And then we, well…"
she looked down[ce][cf][cg][ch], twisting her hands.

"Just tell her, Rarity." AJ turned up, with Rainbow Dash in tow. "She oughta know."
"Well, we decided to investigate as it were." Rarity glared at Applejack, "It's
only proper to find out about our friend."

"Snooping is more like. Also, Rainbow Dash saw that Daring Do movie." Applejack
noted. "And wanted to play pretend. An' Rarity wanted to dress up, and it became
this whole thing. "

"The game was the foot," Pinkie declared, appearing suddenly, complete with an
impossibly fluffy deerstalker hat on top of her Wondercolts hairpiece and a fake
plastic smoking pipe.

“Don’t pretend you didn’t tag along,” Rainbow added. “And you enjoyed it, Prancy
Drew."

“Aint my fault Apple Bloom leaves all them books lying around!" AJ blushed. "Well
either way we found some mighty surprising stuff ‘bout you, sugarcube. Though we
shouldn’t have been snoopin’ in the first place.”

“Do tell.” Sunset smiled. That was bound to be interesting.

“Well, you’re a total egghead for one!” Rainbow burst out first. “Straight As
across the board. And you won, like, almost as many medals in academics as I have
in sports. If you weren’t the queen of delinquents, you coulda been the princess of
the nerds instead.”

“Until you stopped sometime last year.” Rarity added. “Just petered out.”

"I'm very smart." Sunset tried to sound apologetic, even though that was hardly her
fault. Or a fault at all. "Things have always come easy to me that were hard for
the others. Memory, numbers, solving problems, recognising patterns... I'm good at
all those things. And I've been trained by the best. But I wasn’t really focusing
on academics this last year…"

"Granny says you help out at a soup kitchen in the Old Town, delivering leftovers
from the cafeteria and canned goods from the food drives."

"Most of it ends up in my cupboard," Sunset admitted. "It's for poor people, and
well, I'm not exactly rich."

"You're actually in a track and field team!" Rainbow threw up her arms. "How did I
not even know that?"

"I'm just third seat in the reserves." Sunset shrugged. "I like to run, and that
way I've asked Iron Will for the keys so that I can come in the mornings and have
an actual hot shower before school. He thinks I'm training for a marathon."
“There’s no need to be so defensive, darling,” Rarity smiled. “We’re just trying to
know the real you. And all your many hidden talents, apparently. Nobody knows
anything about you really. Not where you live, not what you do -- nothing at all.”

“You could have asked.” Sunset said, “Anything you want to know -- I’ll answer.”

"You're not..." Rarity clearly strained to ask the question delicately. "You're not
sleeping rough, right? Like Twilight did?"

"No, of course not!" Sunset shook her head. "I would not be able to do that for
three years without someone noticing. I rent a place. Is that what you think I've
been doing?"

"How do you afford it?"

"Do you have a pot of gold from the magical pony land?"

"Or magic artifacts?" Rainbow looked at her with concern, "You aren't doing that
mind whammy thing on someone to make them give you money, are you?"

"I work," Sunset said simply. "And sometimes I steal."

"You steal?" It was a common sentiment. Pity, eyes averted, anger and shock, even
envy, Rainbow Dash looking at her as if she grew a second, cooler head.

"If I have to. Better to steal than to starve, and better to steal than to beg too.
This world finds it harder to say no to a thief than to a beggar.But mostly I
juggle a bunch of gigs. I babysit and I tutor, I write papers for desperate
students, I'm working the counter for FAFBEUTSEN -- that sort of thing."

"The what?"

"The Flim And Flam Brothers Everything Under the Sun Emporeum Nonpareil. It's a bit
of a mouthful, but hey, it's work. I'm an informal minor partner, so I work the
counter, and I do the books for them."

"Ain't them the sketchy brothers who made all those rigged machines for the
carnival last year?"

"Yeah, that's them. They're dunderheads, but they're actually pretty good at what
they do -- if you keep them from sabotaging themselves, at least."

FLIM-FLAM COMIC REFERENCE HERE

THEY PIVOT BACK TO SUNSET
[ci][cj][ck][cl][cm]
"In my Equestria, Celestia is the Princess..."

"Pft," Rainbow snorted. "Like Principal Celestia? A princess of magical pon--"

"Not 'a princess’,” Sunset shook her head. "The Princess. A millennium old, with
powers beyond any pony. She raises the Sun and lowers it at night, she makes light,
brighter than any fire to shine the foes and enmities away and she is... was the
sole ruler of the whole of Equestria."

Rainbow giggled and shook her head, amused by the idea.

"Almost all little ponies are her subjects, one way or the other. But every once in
a while she takes a personal student."

"To teach them to raise the Sun?"

"No, no, that's her Power, she can't really teach that. It's just a way to pick out
someone gifted, help them become the best they can be. So they get to do amazing
things. Nobody talks about it, and they don’t write about them in the history
books, but they become great wizards, doctors, scientists, explorers, captains of
whole industries… And she chose me."

"And you're one of them? What'd you do?"

"A lot of things. I studied magic, travelled, faced heroes and monsters... tried
sorcery, politics, poison. I fought in wars and made peace, did things so terrible
the sun itself hid its face from the world, and then I ran away and ended up here.
"

“You wouldn’t want to go...back? From what Twilight said, I’m sure...”

“No.”

“But--”

“No.”

"I remember I flunked this test something fierce," AJ smiled, "And I was so plum
ashamed, that I ran away from home. They found me working a cherry farm in
Applelooza. Can you imagine that? Me -- at a cherry farm of all places. But running
away from your entire world, that's a whole different rodeo.

“I got lucky I ran into people who cared ‘nough to call back to my folk and tell
‘em where I am. To set me straight, and tell me to go home and ‘pologize to Granny
for running away. That they love me, and care for me even if I’ve done screwed up.
I’m sure--”

“I. Am. [i]Not[/i]. Going. Back. To [i]Her[/i].” Sunset said, looking Applejak
straight in her eyes, her voice low and hard. “If this world burns and earth turns
to fire under my feet, if all food be poison and all water - acid, if every breath
would be filled with razors and broken glass it would still be better than going
back.” She picked up her bag and patted her pockets for her pens. “And I would
appreciate it if we never talk of this again”.

There was silence for a bit, the girls taken aback by her sudden outburst.

“It’s complicated.” Sunset grumbled by way of apology.

“If you dun want to talk about it, we understand.” AJ relented. “It’s just that--”

“It does raise the question, darling --” Rarity twisted into the conversation “what
are you going to do now?”

Sunset shrugged helplessly. “Not sure actually. I was so into the whole “steal the
magic crown” plan, I hardly thought of Plan B. You know, I actually thought of just
ending it all.” She waved her hand around to indicate the “it all” she meant.

Rarity gasped silently. “Surely you would do no such thing!”

“Oh, that’s… that’s some bad word choice there.” Sunset smiled sheepishly, “I meant
the school. Finish my exams early, get legally emancipated, get a job for the rest
of the year, then go to uni next autumn.”

She slammed the locker shut, double-checking the locks.

“You know, forget Equestria and all that. Get my feet on the ground, get my life on
its track.”

“And then?” Rarity prompted her gently.

“Dunno. Probably go work for Barnyard Bargains. With my skills, the work I already
did there, and being tight with Di, I guess I could make it to the Division Head by
thirty. Not quite ‘Tyrant Queen of two worlds’, but a sweet gig nonetheless, all
things considered”.

“B-but Sunny! “ Pinkie piped up. “You can’t just leave the school. We’re just
starting to get to know you!” She considered it. “Hey, we should totally call you
Sunny D! Cause you’re… well, you’re not really a delight a lot of the time, but if
we call you Sunny, maybe you’ll smile some more!”
Pinkie provided her own bright smile as an example.

“Oh please, please don’t call me that.” Sunset shuddered. “At least not in school.”

“Aww, why not?”

“‘Because that’s my stripper name.”

Applejack walked into a wall.

“Pardon me, darling, your what?” Rarity was so blushed you could fry eggs on her
face.

That got Sunset to smile.

“My stripper name. You know, when you work in such establishments and do not want
others to recognize you outside of the job you employ a pseudonym. And I’d rather
not be recognized.”

“I know what a ‘stripper name’ is, thank you very much.” Rarity waved in annoyance
“I was just wondering why you would need one.”

“Yeah, did you work as a stripper or something?” Rainbow paused her laughing just
long enough to dodge a whack from AJ. “Hey, don’t hit!”

“Well…” Sunset let the silence drag for a bit, enjoying the rapt attention of her
audience, “No.”

Whether others were disappointed or relieved was a toss-up.

“Not that I didn’t consider it, mind. Easy work, pay under the table, night hours -
it’d be perfect”

Pinkie threw her hands up in exasperation “I know, right!?”

Everybody froze while their minds reeled at the comment, but no one dared to ask
any questions.

Sunset cleared her throat.

“...but it’s just not possible if you're underage. No one wants to take on that
heat, and those who do I would not touch with a ten-foot pole.”
“So why the stripper name?” Applejack asked suspiciously. “You’re just pulling our
leg, aren’t you?”

“Nope. I did work for a stripper bar - as an accountant. It was one of Flim-Flam's
harebrained schemes, so I was there doing accounting for them for a few nights per
month. Met some interesting people.”

THERE'S A BIT MORE BANTER

"Um." I have to go now. She sighed and nodded towards the door. "Detention."

"Oh."

"We should meet after Sunny finishes detention!" Pinkie beamed, suddenly gripped by
an idea. "Even better - we should have a sleepover!"

SOMETHING. A TAG OR ACTION

“I have sleeping bags at home, and smores and we can tell stories, and play games
and…”

“Neat! I’ll bring the new Power Ponies game!” Rainbow pumped her fist. “And I’m
gonna kick all of your butts.”

“You wish sugarcube.” AJ grinned. “Ye’r going down.”

"Can I come too?" Sunset asked. "If that's..."

"Of course!" Pinkie hugged her. "You're our friend! It's not a Pinkie party if I
don’t invite all my friends!"

"Uhm, sugarcube, don't you have a job this evenin?"

"Oh, yes, right.” Sunset bit her lip. “I think… I can come up with something.” She
dug for her phone. “Just move it to some other day, or--"

“Oh!” Rarity sighed, “Uh, goodness. Uh, I do believe I have another engagement
scheduled for this evening that completely slipped my mind until just now.” she
looked away. “And, um. Sweetie Belle, she's... around. I'm sure. Somewhere. And
needs my attention.”

Pinkie pouted.

“Darling, please.” Rarity lost her step. “You can’t… not the puppy-dog pout!”
Pinkie’s lower lip trembled, and her wide baby-blue eyes grew misty, as a single
tear rolled down her cheek. “It’s okay…” the floof of her hair lost its
floofiness, and Sunset could have sworn her Wondercolt ears wilted.

“That’s not fair. I can’t…”

Sad violin music started playing somewhere in the background, eerie and sad, a
long, lonely note.

“Oh fine!”

“Woo!” Pinkie smiled, turning off the sound on her phone. “We’re gonna have so much
fun!”

[center]***[center]

AFTER DETENTION, SUNSET, ELATED GOES TO MEET THE GIRLS

NOTICES FLUTTERSHY
DECIDES TO INVITE HER AS WELL

She opened the door, and instantly she is smitten.

Because Fluttershy is singing.

Her eyes are closed. She her face turned upward to the light. The veins in her
throat visible every time she changes register.

She sings - a soprano, trilling and light, as delicate as whipped cream, pours from
some deep wellspring of magic with, a joyous, leaping, soaring melody, that fills
the room like sunshine.

And it is gone, in an instant, soon as she sees Sunset standing, dumbfounded in a

door. Harmony broken, the melody – gone, taken over by a horrid semi-hissing,
rasping sound, struggling to push through her throat.

"H-h,"

Sometimes - especially lately - it was a curse to be able to see. To be unable not

to see.

The way eyes ran along the room, checking for exits and windows, looking around for
someone to be there, to be a witness, to hear when she cries for help. The tension
in the spine, the tremor of the hand. The slight, shifting half-step to put her
between Sunset and her animals.

She was not just shy.

It was fear, bleeding into every little movement she made.

It was fear that killed that song

“Hhh--”

It was what she did.

It was what she deserved.
[Red]It was power[/red]

"--hi."

Fluttershy finally struggled the word through and grew silent and tense again,
hiding behind the veil of her pink hair.

"Hi." Sunset reached for a smile, found it, somewhere, and forced it onto her face.
"We. Um. Me and the girls." She made a vague gesture down the corridor. “Pinkie
and the girls wanted to invite you for a sleepover. Tonight.”

[small]"Um, no. please."[small]

“It’s at Pinkie’s place,” Sunset added as the silence dragged. “She has smores. And
Rainbow is bringing video games.”

“Oh.” Fluttershy tried to say something. Failed. Tried again. “I don't... I

think..." She looked at Sunset, her lips moving soundlessly. “I couldn’t…”

The bunny, sitting on the table behind her, pushed her with his fluffy head.

Fluttershy looked at him.

He looked back, tapping his foot impatiently.

"Are you sure?"

The rabbit headbutted her softly again.

“Is… Dashie’s going to be there?” She looked back at Sunset. “And the other girls,
right?”

“All of them.” Sunset nodded.

"Oh.” She considered it for a second. “I'll go, then." she reached to scratch the
bunny behind the ears. “N-not right now. I’ll catch up with you. Um. Later. I have
to finish here.” She looked at Sunset with a silent plea. “Please.”

"Yeah. Okay. And..." Sunset sighed.
rehearsed this part too, running it
It was still hard. "I wanted to say
the last two years of bullying, but
And I'll do better in the future.
They told her she needed to do this. She
in her head until the words lost their meaning.
that I'm sorry. I know it doesn't make up for
I really wanted to apologize for what I did.

"I'll be better"

"Of course, Sunset." she nodded and tried to smile. It wasn't very successful. "We
all forgive you."

SHE MEETS OTHER GIRLS

TELLS THEM FLUTTERSHY IS IN
THEY STUMBLE INTO FLEUR AS THEY GO OUT
Suri is being a bitch, esp. To try to coin some favour with Fleur. Rarity is
invited by Fleur to the party. Nothing quite so pathetic and cruel as a coward with
a measure of power.
Sunset is not invited, though.
[cn][co]
Lyra stands up to her in the background.

RARITY WEASELS OUT OF THE SLEEPOVER

TO GO TO FLEUR’S PARTY
TENDERHOOF WOULD BE THERE

“You’ll come to my little soiree, oui?” Fleur batted her improbably long eyelashes.
“I just got RSVP from Tenderhoof.”

“Um.” Rarity gulped throwing a glance at Pinkie. “Tenderhoof, you say?”

Fleur smiled and spread her arms. "But of course, ma cherie. Everyone who is anyone
is invited."

She looked at Sunset, and then her eyes slid past. Apparently, she was not
"anyone".

SOMETHING
FLEUR WALKS AWAY

"Well that was mighty rude of her." Applejack shook her head. “Some folk just ain’t
got no manners.”
"S-she is under a lot of pressure these days." Rarity bit her lip. "I'm sure she
didn't mean to come off like that."

"But you're going to her party, aint'cha?" Applejack gave Rarity a look.

Rarity whimpered.

"To see that Tenderhoof fella?"

“It's not that!" Rarity protested. "It's just that Fleur is such a good friend, and
she just arrived in our town, so shee needs my support. Pinkie, darling, you
understand, don’t you?”

"Uh-huh," Pinkie nodded. “We'll do it some other time." Pinkie waved her hand
jovially, and her smile never wavered, but...

"And you," she turned to Sunset, "are you going to be fine, darling?"

"I'll be fine." Sunset looked down.

She'd be fine.

She would go to her empty house, and she'd nurse her headache, and maybe finally
get some sleep, that would not be smothered by nightmares.

"I'll manage. Besides, I have one more apology to make.”

[center]***[center]

“My faithful student, wherever you are now--”

It hurt.

“Sunset, please come back--”

It hurt so bad.

“Sunset, it's been a year now. Please answer me--”

She’d rather cut off her arm and rip her eyes out than read any more of this
flowing copperplate script.

“...just want to know that you’re alive...”

Anything not to feel that clawing pain in her chest.

“...your mother keeps asking for you…”

Dozens of pages, row upon row of perfect calligraphy.

“...I still hope that you will one day read this…”

Pages blurred together, and something stung her eyes.

And then it went blank. Somehow it was even worse than all of the rest combined,
and Sunset thought that for a second her heart stopped beating with a final full
stop of the writing.

She touched her left shoulder.

A lesson was there, learned long ago.

‫ك ُـل شـمـس يـجب أن تـغـيـب‬. Everything ends.

But it was important to end things properly. She owed Celestia much more than just
that.

A quill she prepared tickled her palm, and she tried to shake off the big drop of
ink at its end. It’s been a long time since she wrote with proper instruments...

[quote]
Dear Princess Celestia,

I am sorry. For the lies. For the secrets. For letting you down as your student,
and for straying off the path you chose for me as I did. I am sorry for the things
I’ve done that hurt you, for the things I’ve said that I shouldn’t have and for the
things I have not said when I should have. Things I’ve done, and things I didn’t
do.

I don’t ask for your forgiveness - I do not deserve it. I do want to say that I
will forever be grateful for the things you taught the little filly you once took
as a student and that all I ever truly wanted was to make you proud. Even if the
way I chose to do it was wrong, and only made me hurt you more.
I see some of my errors, but I have strayed too far from home and the way you have
taught me to return to you or to Equestria. I am my own mare now, and I can’t be
your student any longer even if you have not discharged me already. Any obligation
or duty you may still feel towards me I have long since rendered void by my own
actions.

Please let my mother and my father know that I am alive and that I am doing fine,
but that I will not be coming back to them, probably ever again.

No longer your student

Sunset Shimmer
[/quote]

She set aside the crude quill she had to make herself and considered her writing.
How and when did she become so confused, that even when trying to express her real
feelings, for the first time in so many years, she still used the same manipulative
lines? Hiding behind rote politeness. Reminding the person of the bond you shared
to gain their empathy. Discharging herself before she would surely be disavowed
anyways to maintain her pointless dignity, using the momentum to ask for a favour
that she has never deserved… simple, efficient tricks - an instrument she became so
used to she could no longer set it aside even when she wanted to.

Nothing could really be done now - the journal had no way to edit the text once
written, and even if she were to rip out the page, it would still be preserved in
the other journal.

The second letter was easier than the first one. The dry, formulaic language of the
Court left little place for feelings and manipulations. Merely facts and statements
and an occasional rote line that was demanded by the protocol. It mattered little
that the facts and the statements were -- quite literally -- signing her own
sentence without even knowing what the verdict may be.

[quote]
To Her Majesty Celestia, by Victory over Chaos, forever the Princess of Equestria
and her other Realms and Territories, Duchess of Canterlot, Marchesa of Ponyville,
Baroness of Winsome Falls, Protector of the Everfree Forest, Lady of the Sun.

While it sorrows me beyond words, I believe it my duty to fully relinquish and

release every post, title and privilege you have in your magnanimity chosen to gift
to your student, void any bond or obligation you may feel towards me and ask for
your leave.

Moreover, for all accounts of my crimes, namely: High Treason, Attempted Murder,
Use of Black Magic in the Highest Degree, numerous counts of Deadly Assault with
Magic, Theft and Desertion, I fully admit my guilt and offer no extenuating
circumstances that may alleviate it.

To whatever punishment or court, Your Majesty may wish to impose for those and
prior crimes I have committed, I will submit myself freely and without coercion or
protest as soon as the portal allows me to arrive to Equestria upon reception of
Your summons.

Your subject
Sunset Shimmer
[/quote]

Perhaps she won’t read it. It could happen, right? She did not write in the journal
for so long… she even forgot the thing existed, for some time. Surely Celestia did
the same. Just threw it out with yesterday’s trash just like her other things when
she ordered some maid to clean out Sunset’s room and make room for Twilight
Sparkle.

She didn’t really want to believe it though, and dozens of pages of her writing in
the diary were the evidence to the contrary.

She closed the book, and her fingers returned to her left shoulder.

Everything ends. But for now all she could do was wait.
INTERMISSION 2 (ORANGE) - COMING STORM[cp][cq][cr]
The orange sky beat down on the orange sand mercilessly, covering the desert and
the oasis in a wavering haze of immense heat. An orange little filly climbed out of
the pool, slipping over the copper-gilded rim, and shook violently, spraying
droplets of water in every direction, making the older mare snort and cover her
muzzle with her wide white wings.

The sky rumbled far away with the sound of distant thunder.

The mare looked at the horizon, the corner of her eyes making the most delightful
little wrinkles.

A storm on the horizon, vast as the skies themselves.

The orange filly struck at the water again, making another, bigger splash. “Come
onn!” she mock-whined. The game wasn’t fun when she was the only one playing.

"The storm is coming, my little sun." the mare said, looking at the horizon, where
orange-tinted clouds covered the horizon in whirlwinds of sand and dust. The
corners of her eyes under the nebulous rainbow-colored mane wrinkled in the most
delightful way when she tried to gauge the distance to the storm. "It'll be here
soon."

"We should get inside." She grabbed the towel the older mare levitated and dried
herself up.

"Should we? What about everyone else?"

They were there, she knew. Outside the plaza, beyond the walls, they stood there,
looking in, empty, hungry eyes, waiting for something - waiting for her to do
something.

But she didn't want to think about that now. Instead, she pulled playfully on the
older mare's tail, trying to drag her larger frame towards the house. Instead, the
mare twisted round, and snatched the little filly, squealing with the unexpected
traitorous attack, and brought her into the hug of her feathery wings, holding her
close to her body.

"You can stop the storm, my little sun. You know the words"

"But I'm tired! And I want more wine!" She mock-whined."Besides, the sun is still
out, and the weather's nice. Can't we just enjoy it for now?"

"Every sun must set. Some sooner than the others." She sighed. "And someone must be
there to make sure it will rise again."

“I dun wanna. Why is it always me?” She hmph’d, turning away. “I just want to have
fun. And I don’t care about the stupid storm. Not like it can hurt us here.”

"But what of those who have no cover from the storm and no magic to disperse it?"

She pouted. “Do I have to?”

"Say the words, little sun. Summon the magic. Only you can do it."

Sunset pouted

"Don't you want it?" The red mare asked, her mane burning, thick red flame
imperishable. "To grasp the power? Take the winds, command the elements? Do you not
need it?"

"It's not about me."

“Do it for them then.” A flick of the burning-red mane pointed towards the gate
where they waited. The indistinct grey mob, out there in the desert, looking inside
the small oasis of opulence in the desert. Looking at them -- looking at her --
with something in their eyes. A silent begging, hope, fear, desperation.

She sighed, reached inside for her magic, and moved her neck, guiding her magic
through precise, sharp cuts, leaving a trail of green script hanging in the air, as
her lips moved, summoning the secret name, and the wind around her rose, big and
mighty tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks.

But it was wrong - her magic, erupted, sickly-orange, pain echoing through her horn
down into her chest until something broke, and the hurricane rose, a beast of its
own, outside her control, outside her power, breaking the skies into thousand
raining shards, and scouring the land, until there was nothing underneath her
hooves and she was falling, down, and down and down.

And as she fell, screaming, trying to grasp for something, for anything to hold on
to, to stop the torrent of black and green magic that ripped everything apart, all
she could see was the grin of the mare, her mane and coat as red as blood.

She woke, hoarse from her own screams.

CHAPTER 8 - THE TROUBLE
The new girl was trouble, Sunset decided.

It wasn't just the nascent headache and irritation at the early wake-up talking --
it was the little things.

How she looked at other kids while Rarity introduced her to her fashion-clique. How
she dressed. How she talked about herself, dazzling the children with her stories
and experiences.

She looked at her phone, checking the school MyStable groups as they grew abuzz
with speculations and rumours. Everything was capitalised, and spoken in hushed,
reverend tones: The New Girl who was the instant sensation with the Car described
in terms that bordered on erotic, just as the Boyfriend who drove it. The Party,
where only the People Everyone Should Know were invited. The Mansion where it
happened.

The hangers-on, the sycophants, the gossipmongers all joined her entourage, falling
into step as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

She'd have to do something about all that…

[i]No.[/i] She sighed. She said she'd just give it all away. No plans, no schemes.
She flipped the phone closed and put it away.

"Hey, Rarity."

The girl winced, before flopping bonelessly in her seat.

"Please, darling, don't shout. I'm having a migraine, and it is positively

murderous."

"Want some food?" Rainbow sighed looking at her sandwich. "When I get a headache,
it's usually cause I'm hungry."

She checked out Rarity's empty tray. "I can share if you want." She broke off half
her sandwich and poked right into Rarity’s face. "It's the good stuff: potato mash
and pasta on sourdough bread."

Rarity looked at the mayo-dripping... artefact with abject horror, first growing
pale, then - positively green, as she beat down nausea. "Um. Thank you, darling,
but I think I'd rather.. not."

"Your loss." Rainbow chomped into the sandwich with gusto. "I even got the good
mayo today."

"At least get some water in you." Applejack pushed a water bottle towards Rarity.
"Do you want to go to the nurse's office? Get some asspirin or something."

"I'll be fine, darling, thank you." Rarity took a sip, before pressing the bottle
to her forehead. "I just need to survive Algebra."

"Um, if you don't mind, I can try to, um. Help?" Fluttershy moved behind Rarity,
and put her long fingers on her temples, massaging them slowly. Rarity whimpered,
leaning back into the massage. "Tree Hugger says it helps when the energy is
clogged in the upper chakras."

"Ugh, Algebra is the worst." Rainbow Dash grumbled. "It's sooo boooring."

"I've got Algebra too. You coming with, Sunset?"

“Sorry,” Sunset shook her head, "I have AP Bio now, then I have a test for DC
Chem."

"I like calculus. You just need to remember this little song about the chain rule.
It goes like--” Pinkie looked at Rarity, winced, and smiled sheepishly. "Well,
maybe I'll teach you next time. My big sister Maud taught it to me, and she's
super-smart."

"Nerd. Hey, don't hit," Rainbow leaned away from AJs punch to the shoulder. "I
mean, who gives tests at the beginning of the year anyways."

"That is some really heavy lifting there, sugarcube.” Applejack gave Rainbow a
look, and pulled her hand away. “Advanced courses and college-level stuff its lots
of work."

"I'm, not really taking the course. I'm just doing the finals." Sunset waved her
hand
"Trying to get things out of the way."

"You, um, you're not in AP Biology. I've never, um seen you there."
"I switched. Yesterday." Sunset poked her mystery food. "Just trying to keep busy."

"Oh." Fluttershy lowered her eyes. The fingers on Rarity's temple slowed down. "Um.
I see."

"If you don't..."

"No, it's, um. It's fine."

THEY SWITCH TO RARITY’S PARTY

[cs][ct]
IT WAS REALLY COOL
SHE MET IMPORTANT PEOPLE (™)
[cu]
INCLUDING TENDERHOOF
THEY HAVE NOT SPOKEN, AS SUCH
BUT THERE WAS EYE CONTACT
SQUEE
SOMETHING INSENSITIVE IS SAID TOWARDS SUNSET
SHE SEES DIAMONDS
GOES TO ‘GET SECONDS’
SHE CATCHES UP TO DIAMOND GANG IN LINE OF CAFETERIA

"An' Butch sez - you ken how Butch is, na?"

"Absolute unit."

"Such ledge."

"Aye, so there I was cheesing up that bird, and Butch comes down the apples, and he
sez, 'Oi, bruv, I--'"

"I thought we had a deal, Spot," Sunset said coldly, interrupting the small
Diamond.

"Shimmer," he bared his teeth. "Always a pleasure, innit." he made a gesture for
her to join him and his brother's space in the queue. "So we had. What's your
point?"

"Little birdie told me someone’s been bothering Sandalwood's herd."

"Have they now, eh?" He looked at his big brothers, who shifted nervously under his
ga\e. "Something you want to tell me, boyos?"

"Well, um, Spot, y'see..." Fido started--

Spot yanked his brother by the sleeve, and when he leaned, followed up with a smack
upside the head.

"Idjit."

"But Spot!" he whined, "We're showing, whatsitcalled,"

"’Nitiative!" his other brother piped up, which earned him a yank and a smack of
his own. "B'sides, Cherry and hers are doing it too!"

"Idjits. Both of ye. Cut it out." He ignored the pained yelp and whine. "I gave my
word, didn't I? Making me look bad, aren't you?"

"But Spoot." Rover tried. "Ma says if it ain't Diamond it don't co--"

Another smack swiftly followed.

"You ken Ma likes that girl here more than her own flesh and blood." Spot grumbled.
"'Girl has got the proper spirit' she says. So you ain't gun make me look bad, ere
Ma finds out what you’ve been up to. And then it's all our hides."

They both whined but didn't raise a point.

Spot released Rover and Fido's sleeves, allowing them to stand back up."Besides,
Shimmer here hasn't steered us wrong yet."

"Yes, Spot," both of them said, looking like scolded toddlers.

"We good Sunset?" Spot turned back to Sunset, clearly satisfied with his handiwork.

"We good." She nodded. The little Diamond was more than helpful -- for all that Ma
Bark did like her, he did not have to go that far. But it was a nice change of
pace. "Cheers."

"Eh. I gave my word, didn' I? T'aint nuthin." He looked sideways at his brothers.
"S'long as you deliver your part of the bargain."

"I will."

"Well, that's all good then. Good stuff all around. By the way, Shimmer, we gon go
pigeon fly after. You in?"

GILRS CATCH UP TO HER

TO CHECK THAT SHE’S NOT IN TROUBLE
 ASK WHY SHE’S CUTTING THE LINE
SHE SAYS BYE TO THE DIAMONDS
SPOT IS MAKING GOOGLY EYES AT RARITY
THEY GO TO THE END OF THE LINE
PROPERLY
SHE SAYS E ACTUALLY LIKES THEM DIAMONDS

“You like them fellas?”

"Heh, yeah, they can be fun."

Fluttershy lagged back, for a second, and...

A twitch of the fingers like trying to clench a fist. Lips pressed together, core
tense, head lowered, cheeks blushed. Weight moved to the back of the foot, eyes
darting to the side.

"But they're not friends -- they just think I'm one of them. Everyone does when I
want them to."

"What is it, some sort of magic?" Rainbow squinted at her with suspicion.

"Skill. A trick, really. It's not terribly hard."

[cv][cw][cx][cy]

"Well, darling, truth be told, associating with that sort of people isn't good for
you. Relapsing into bad habits and all that."

"I ain't saying they're a rotten bunch, but going out for stealin aint' a good
idea.

Lyra officially declares for SBP

The Box (™) is establisehd
Posters defaced by LD who gets into a fight with RD
And Cherry Crush
And reception is generally tepid
Fleur shows a bit of her true colours
Girls try to befriend her but mostly fail
Rarity defends her.Makes an excuse for her and promises to
talk to her.

SUNSET GOES TO HER COUNSELING

[center]***[/center]

The silence stretched like chewing gum, as Sunset eyed the striped counsellor
warily and sipped her tea. It was kinda like detention, except that she was alone
here, and doing her homework would have been rude.

The Zebrician masks looked at her judgmentally from the walls of the school
counsellor's walls, as inscrutable and silent as the counsellor herself

[i]Is that the best you got?[/i]

Zecora silently nudged the sugar bowl towards her, and Sunset nodded in gratitude.

It was a game of dominance - who would give up under the weight of the oppressive
silence that filled the room, and start talking if only to break it.

The counsellor smiled and relaxed in her chair. Her hands lay on the armrests palms
up, a slight turn of her head inviting Sunset to talk.

She responded by crossing her legs and slowly mixing sugar in her tea. Crossed
legs, closed hands - position of negation, direct eye contact underlined the
challenge to the counsellor.

[i]I can do this all day.[/i]

Zecora’s smile grew wider.

Her long finger with a grey-coloured fingernail started tick-tocking against the
wooden armrest.

Click. Clack. Click. Clack.

The sound echoed across the silent room in toon with the ticking of the clock,
making Sunset acutely aware of each improbably long second until she could escape
this room, each click like a drop of water in a qilinese torture.

Sunset raised her eyebrow, and concentrated on her lesson plan with Diamond later
this day, zoning out the annoying sound by an effort of mental discipline.

Click.

Another minute ticked by.

Clack.

And then another.

Zecora’s gaze swept around the room, tricking Sunset into looking at various
conversation pieces scattered around the room. She was sure that, were she to ask
about the story behind the purple porcupine in a pink tutu that adorned the
mantelpiece, Zecora would gladly tell a most fascinating tale.

She didn’t ask. Instead, she only smiled and nodded a bit, pouring herself a second
cup of tea, and gestured to refill Zecora’s

Another handful of seconds was swallowed by the deafening silence, broken only by
the soft murmur of water pouring into the cup.

Zecora’s smile became a little bit strained.

Sunset’s grew wider.

Finally, the counsellor gave up. Her rich, low laughter broke the silence into a
million little pieces.

“You’re good, Ms Shimmer, there’s no dissent. To thee, I yield my free consent.”

Her voice was deep, with a sing-song Zebrahi accent that made everything she said
seem almost like poetry.

Sunset bared her teeth in a vicious smile. Her voice caught the first time she
tried to talk - her throat dry of the prolonged forced silence, despite all the tea
she drank.

“You make amazing tea, Ms Zecora. ” She illustrated the point by taking another
sip.
A quick look at the clock confirmed her suspicion. It was exactly fifteen minutes
into the meeting, which meant that Zecora did not just give up their little game,
merely moved to part two.

[i]’I yield to thee’ my cutie-markless butt. Celestia sure knows how to pick them.
[/i]

And now, apparently, they would be an exchange of meaningless pleasantries. Another

form of silence, just disguised as a conversation, aimed to keep the other party
talking until one of them inadvertently let something slip.

She almost frowned, before she managed to stop herself and return to the blank
half-smile she maintained.

Those were some very specific negotiation tactics, not something one would pick up
from a book or a university course. Perhaps it would be better for her to have
pretended that she was one of the stock of troubled little girls that acted out
because their rich mommies didn’t get them a new toy or something, instead of
tipping her hand as she did.
Hubris -- a trap no less dangerous than the one the counsellor set up.

The grip of her fingers on the teacup strengthened imperceptibly, instead of her
fingers running across her shoulder. This, perhaps, was no longer a game, it was
now a battle.

“Thank you. It’s an old Zebrician brew. But you’re not here for tea, are you?”

“I don’t know”. Sunset reinforced her words with a little shrug and decided to push
the situation forward. “Why [i]am[/i] I here?”

The counsellor didn’t answer, just watching her from behind her teacup.

She touched one of the pieces on the chessboard to her side, half-turned away from
the counsellor. It was cold and heavy -- a tell-tale sign of real ivory, with a
yellowish tint betraying its age.

“Another thing from back home?” She ventured a guess

“Yes, it is, among some other things. Do you play this game of kings?”

“I know the rules,” Sunset placed the King’s pawn carefully in the centre of the
board.

“Perhaps you wish to give this game a try? Move my King’s pawn to E-five.”

Sunset placed the black pawn towards her own and moved her knight to attack it. The
game was on.

Silence reigned in the room again, only to be broken by the clacking of the figures
across the board and the commands, and the occasional comment from Zecora.

“You’re not afraid to make a sacrifice. You know that to success there is a price”,
Zecora’s pawn ignored the seemingly vulnerable knight that Sunset pushed forward.

“You are direct, even when using guile.” Her pawns started their march forward,
depriving Sunset of a place to manoeuvre. “That makes your position quite fragile.”

Sunset gritted her teeth and made a play for the centre, her figures focusing on a
single square on the board.

“But you overextend yourself and forget about the flanks.” Zecora’s knight took a
pawn in the back, and suddenly the previously impervious chain of white pawns
became a crowd of easy pickings, only standing in the way of her other forces. A
small growl of frustration at this setback escaped Sunset’s throat. “That’s where
you’re open for attacks.”

Sunset glowered at the counsellor and upped her attack plans.

“You react to fear with more hate. That, in a child’s a rare trait.”

Clashes in the centre became more aggressive, as Sunset tried to milk her position
for all she could before it fell apart. Pawns and figures captured each other in a
frenzy of pretend-slaughter.

“But anger leads to your mistakes. You know it even as you raise the stakes.” Her
chain of defenders in tatters, Sunset’s last forces rallied around the king in a
desperate attempt to stop the black pawn from reaching the final row.

“Because attacking that which you can beat, does not always lead to the enemy's
defeat.”

A traitorous black knight slipped past her defenders and Sunset found her pinned
king under attack, with nowhere to go.

She sighed and tipped the figure over, signalling her surrender.

“You’re good at this.” That much she had to admit. She was silent during most of
the match, and motionless save when she moved the figurines, so to take her apart
so thoroughly on the board and outside of it -- the zebrican had some skill. “And
Celestia trusts you, doesn’t she?”

She had to, for the Principal to send Sunset here. Zecora merely nodded, waiting
for the girl to finish her train of thought.

Sunset leaned back in her armchair. “I am a ma… a woman enough to admit that I may
have some issues. And I could probably use some help with them.” She gave Zecora a
suspicious glare. “But there will be things of which I will absolutely not speak
of. And nothing said here leaves this room.”

“Your condition is expected. With no reservations I accept it.”

CHAPTER 9 - THE THREAT
[cz]
Fleur's dickery escalates
[da]
Sunset snaps at Fleur
[db]
Feels guilty about it
Fleur maybe even feigns a victim
SUNSET HAS A REASON TO AVOID THE GIRLS
SHE SITS WITH HER STUDENTS INSTEAD
Sunset was hiding.

That’s what she was doing. Sitting at the freshman table, deep away from the
seniors side, listening to her students’ chatter, and trying not to look for
familiar faces in the crowd, not to think about what she’d say to them if -- when
-- they would talk again.

"Apple Bloom had a fight with Twist again," Diamond noted with some satisfaction,
"Bet we're going to see some Gabby Gums posts in MyStable soon."

"What was it about this time?" Silver asked.

"No clue. But look at how they sit, Twist biting her lips with that gross overbite
of hers, and that strained smile on Applebloom is trying to make. Poor little hick,
you can read her like a book."

"You always want to break them up," Silver noted, as if offhand, but the way she
looked at Tiara was anything but. "I never understood why."

"It's just..." Diamond made a gesture. "I don't know. They irk me when they're
together. Besides, we always get the juiciest Gabby Gums gossip pieces when those
three idiots are angry about something."

“I’m just--”

"Ooh, look at her!” Diamond nodded towards another girl, sitting dejectedly in the
corner. “That shirt, and look at her hair. She stayed at her father's."

"Poor Namby.” Silver shook her head. “She got a B again. You should have seen her
in class - she practically cried."

"And look at that scrunchie. It is soo last week." Tiara added. "Means they're
saving pennies."

"It could just be that she forgot--"

"Nuh-uh. She stays with her dad half the time, gets tossed from house to house,
parents get guilty, guilty means shopping, shopping means a new scrunchie, and the
right brand supplies to show off in class, or a weekend trip you can brag about.
This - this is penny-pinching. And B this early in the year? They probably stopped
getting her tutors over the summer too."

"She'll probably come to the nerds for the test answers in, like, a week." Silver
shrugged in between mouthfuls of fries. "Fear -- you can practically smell it."
"Yeah. I get it, though." Tiara sighed. "Nobody wants to end up like their Mom."

Silver paused, and touched Tiara's hand gently. Diamond squeezed back.

"She's friends with Rumble, right?" Diamond looked back up. "The one from our Gym
class."

"That's one way to put it," Silver sniggered. "He's been following her like a lost
puppy. "

"That's an in to Thunderlane if we need it," Tiara said, satisfied. "Can you make a
note, Silvie?"

"Sure thing, Di.” Silver flipped out her phone dutifully. “All done.”

“Thank you, Silvie.” Diamond poked Sunset in the side, "Hey, Sunset, you alright?
You're usually more into people-watching."

"Huh? Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." Sunset waved her off. "Just looking at the new girl."

They all followed her eyes towards Fleur, surrounded by a flock of still-smitten
girls.

“She’s trouble.” Silver decreed. “Everyone’s talking about her.”

"She likes the cameras," Tiara said, stabbing her food just a bit too hard. "She
actually enjoys it."

"It's all going to her media accounts too. Probably has someone doing it for her
too." Silver swiped down on her phone, scrolling through a MyStable feed. "A lot of
it is school related, though."

"HI, SUNSET!" Pinkie blared, popping out of nowhere like some sort of festive jack-
in-the-box.

"We couldn't find you, but then I had a leg twitch, and a nose itch, and I saw your
hair here, and I said, ‘hey, it's Suunny, and so--’"

"Hello, darling,"

Other girls were here too. Silen reproach in Rarity’s eyes. Applejack’s lips
pursed, Fluttershy looking like she'd rather not be here at all. Rainbow… didn’t
care actually, which was nice. “H-” she started.
"What's up with you being at the babies' table?" Rainbow dropped her tray
unceremoniously, and squeezed herself on the bench. "Senior side is way cooler. And
closer to the buffet."

SUNSET INTRODUCES THE GIRLS

"You're the Rich girl, ain't you. From Applebloom's class." Applejack sat down her
other side.

"And you're the losers Sunset has been hanging out with." Diamond somehow managed
to look down on them. "The meek, the weak, the posh and the dumb."

Silver giggled.

"I'm sorry, darling, what?"

Tiara raised her finger, pointing dismissively at each girl in turn.

"Weak can't fight," she moved from Fluttershy to Pinkie. "Meek - won't fight, dumb
--"

"Hey!" Rainbow bristled "I--"

"--is too stupid to realise there's a fight going on, and the posh white princess
here thinks that fighting is what 'other people' do, and she sooo posh and pretty
that no matter who wins she'll stay posh and pretty and close enough to the top."

"Why I never!"

"That's mighty unkind of you, sugarcube." Applejack wasn't amused. "I don't suppose
you have a description for me?"

"You." Diamond looked at her curiously, turning her head to the side. "Jury's still
out on you. I'd put you with the rainbow-head, like 'dumb and dumber', but you are
not stupid. Nuh-uh, not like she is."

"I'm not--"

"And you are not quite like miss Priss here. You know no one is going to mess with
Big Mac's little sister, that's not how you think. I know your type, same as the
the other Apple in my class. It's all about hard work this and self-sufficiency
that with you. Privilege is not why you're not in the fight." Diamond's smiled her
mother's smile, all poison and acid. "I think you just don't care. You got yours
and everyone who isn't family can rot and die." She shrugged. "I can respect that."
"I'M NOT STUPID!" Rainbow finally exploded. "I'm--" everyone was staring at her
sudden outburst. "I'm just... not good with... egghead stuff." She slid back down
on her chair sheepishly, shrinking away from the attention of the neighbouring
tables.

“Sure you are.” Diamond snickered

"Now, now darlings, please don't fight.”Rarity interjected smoothly. “Any friends
of Sunset are friends of ours, aren't they? Let’s have a civil conversation for
once.”

SOMETHING

“Now I ain’t saying I should not have helped out sooner,” Applejack agreed, “But
this ain’t how I think about it. And we did ‘get in the fight’ in the end.”.

“Yeah, we did!” Rainbow added. “And we kicked Sunset’s butt.”

“You wish! Sunset’s gonna run this school in no time.”

“Is not!”

“Is too!”

“Is not!”

“Is to-”

“Diamond,” Sunset said softly.

“Sunset!” Diamond tried to suddenly betrayed. “But--”

“Please.”

Diamond pouted and crossed her hands, but acquiesced. “Fine.”

Rainbow stuck out her tongue at the kids.

THE DISCUSSION MOVES BACK TO FLEUR.

“It’s a pattern.” Silver said. “We know this one.”

“Uh-huh. First comes the generosity. A flash of silver is something to entice, show
her wealth, her power, and what those who kneel will get.” Diamond started.

“And then it’s that Quilinese thing.” Silver continued. “The lead. The fear. For
those that aren’t blinded by silver, for those that think of straying or fighting.”

“Quilinese thing?” Rarity asked, lost.

“'shā yī jǐng bǎi'. That’s what quilinise say”. Sunset said, looking down into her
coffee. “To admonish one is to warn a hundred’. Silver is right. Demonstration of
wealth, a reward for the followers. Just as silver has been shown, the lead will
then be revealed -- a demonstration of strength, a show of power. That’s what you
do to make everyone fall into step.”

RARITY CONTRADICTS
SAYS HEY IN FACT THERE IS A VERY NICE THING
THAT SHE AND FLEUR PLANNED
DERPY THING HAPPENS

“In fact, we have a very nice surprise prepared just for today! As I keep telling
you, people are never as bad as you think they are.”

Sunset looked at Rarity. Slightly flushed cheeks, a flick of her perfectly-

conditioned violet hair, a ghost of a slightly self-satisfied smi--

"Darling, please don't do that!"

"Do what?"

"Look at me like that. It's as if I'm one of those frogs in your Bio class, all
splayed on the tray and getting vivisected. It's uncanny."

“Sorry.” Sunset looked down. Whatever Rarity was planning with Fleur, she knew what
she was doing. Better than she did.

SOMETHING
THEY ADJOURN
SUNSET KEEPS DIAMOND BACK

“Sunset, why are you hanging out with them.” Instead of us.

“Yeah, and you like,” Diamond snorted. “Listen to them. Defer them even. Why?!
They’re just children!” Diamond, so absurdly serious, calling the girls three years
her senior and twice her size children -- was it her doing?

“Because I’m learning. And you can’t learn if you assume you know everything.”

“Well, um, yeah,I knew that!” Diamond hesitated. “but why them?!”
“Yeah, what could they know?”

“First rule of life, grasshoppers: It is important to draw wisdom from different

places. If you take it from only one place, it becomes rigid and stale. They beat
us. They beat me. So now I learn from them.”

Diamond made a face like she just ate something that was trying to crawl out the
way it came.

“Now, about Namby -- It was a good spot today. You’re a quick learner.” Sunset
chuckled, seeing Diamond preen. She used to be very short on praise, and it felt
good seeing her student happy. “But look at her necklace. See how she fiddles with
it? Tries to put it away, and not to look at it?"

"Yeah?”

“It's old, though. She had it for ages." Silver added.

"So why does she fiddle with it? Ten to one odds is it's her father's gift. But she
doesn't want to look at it -- why? Well, maybe she doesn't like it, but more likely
it reminds her of something. Most likely -- means he told her she'd have to
choose."

“Ooh.” Diamond hummed. "That means the window's short." Diamond made a sign for
Silver to jot that down. "Depending on who she ends up with, she's either start
doing better or stop caring."

"Means you need to hook her by the end of next week. Next month at the most. Or--"
Sunset sighed. "Or just talk to her."

"Huh?"

"A little kindness... a bit of generosity, it can go a long way." Sunset explained.
"Just talk to her. You reach out to someone when they're down, and, chances are
they'll remember it. And if you do it right -- you got yourself a friend for life."

"That's unconventional." Diamond furrowed her brow. "But it could work. We could
use another minion with middies."

[i]That was not what I meant...[/i]

Or did she?
[red]Is that not what they did to you?[/i]

"Alright, Sunset." Diamond nodded. "I trust you. Silvie! Wait for me".

Sunset sighed, watching the girl skip merrily away towards her next class, without
a care in the world.

[center]***[/center]
[dc]
SLUMBER PARTAY!
Make it a separate chapter?
Sunset arrives
Brings stuff. Dunno what yet
She returns the make-up kit
Fluttershy comes with Rainbow Dash
She’s reluctant
And holds Angel
Sunset tries to pet the bunny
[dd]
But Angel doesn’t like Sunset
AJ and RD start competing at video games
Pinkie cheers
Rarity and Sunset talk

"Darling you have such a beautiful hair. This colour, it just pops. But you need to
take better care of it."

Rarity ran her hand through Sunset's hair, her cold, delicate fingers sending
shivers through the girl.

"It's a bit dry. What shampoo are you using?"

SUNSET SAYS IT’S MANE AND TAILS

RARITY DOESN’T KNOW THAT BRAND
BUT FLUTTERSHY DOES
CAUSE IT’S USED ON HORSES

"I cannot -- no, I will not stand it." Rarity jumped up on her feet, practically
buzzing with the pathos of her exclamation. "We shall have a radical makeover." She
stomped her foot. "Right now."

She looked at Fluttershy, and Pinkie, who was still trying to reach the last chip
from the can. "Come now, hustle people, it's a fashion emergency! All hands on
deck!"

Sunset could only watch as hurricane Rarity and her two press-ganged assistants
turned the entire room upside down, and before she could even think about
protesting, she found herself sat in a chair with a towel tied around her neck.

"Now, we'll start with something simple..." Rarity stood over an intimidatingly
large multi-tiered suitcase-sized case of makeover, picking out bottles and boxes
like a mad alchemist preparing to pit his science against the laws of men and
nature.

RAINBOW LAUGHS AND SAYA SHE WOULD NEVER

SNAPS A PIC OF SUNSET WITH A FACE MASK AND CUCUMBERS AND EVERYTHING*
DODGES SMACK FROM AJ

"Now sit, darling, sit!" Rarity urged her towards the chair.

"As long as you don't tie me to the chair." Sunset shifted in her seat, trying to
find a more comfortable position. "I'm told I tend to fidget." she not-explained.

"I promise I won't," the chair swiveled, and Rarity stood behind her. "Now close
your eyes darling, and prepare to be transformed!"

SHE TRUSTS RARITY

SOMETHING

"Ooh, what's that one for?" Pinkie snatched a bottle from Rarity's makeover kit.
"It's so shiny!"

"It's an eyeliner," Rarity said absent-minded, still engrossed into planning out
her beautification campaign

"Ooh." Pinkie opened the bottle. "Like so?" She drew a few lines on her cheek,
making an eye. It looked almost alive, squinting when she smiled.

"Pinkie!" Rarity tried to take her make up back. "That's not--"

"What, did I do it wrong?" Pinkie dodged Rarity's hand and drew another eye to
match on the other side of her face. "Let me try again!" Another eye, this one on
her hand, round and staring, joined. "This is fun!"

"But!" Rarity spluttered, scandalised. "You're not supposed to--"

"Wonder what else could I draw?" Pinkie mused, somehow again evading the capture,
and deftly drew a bird on her forearm in three curved lines. "Ooh, I need
balloons!"

"It is fun," Fluttershy agreed quietly, as she drew a butterfly on the back of her
hand with another obscenely expensive concoction, and giggled softly. "I like it."

RARITY SNATCHES THE BOTTLE FROM PINKIE

PINKIE STARTS TO SAY SORRY
RARITY ADDS ANOTHER TWO BALLOONS TO HER
AND ITS FUN ALL AROUND

FLUTTERSHY’S PARENTS COME TO PICK HER UP.#

FIND HER PAINTED AS A DOLL
WITH THE REST OF THE GIRLS FACE-PAINTED
RAINBOW TRIES TO TALK FLUTTERSHY INTO STAYING
BUT SHE LEAVES
BECASUE SUNSET IS THERE
AJ GOES AS WELL
SHE HAS CHORES IN THE MORNING
RAINBOW, RARITY, SUNSET STAY, THOUGH THEY PREPARE FOR SLEEP

Borrow that thing where she has nightmares

She sits awake
And smokes
[de]
Girls huddle
SHe tells ESMS

“Darling, I was meaning to ask you.” Rarity put her hand on Sunset’s. “You always
touch your left shoulder when something bad happens, and I wondered…”

“There’s a tattoo!” Pinkie blurted. “I saw it after the gym! Not a fun one, like
candy or a flower or balloons. Just some scribbles.” she traced it out in the air.

“Yeah.” Sunset sighed. “Just a memory of a lesson I’ve learned long ago.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Sunset ran her fingers lightly across the left shoulder, where under her jacket, a
thin black line of calligraphy trailed on her skin and started to talk with a well-
set voice of a storyteller.
“It’s a story I do not tell lightly, so listen well, for I will not soon be in the
mood to repeat it....”

________________
CHAPTER 10 - THE NERVE
[df]
SOMETHING
MAYBE SURI DECLARES FOR PRESIDENT HERE
FIRST CLASH BETWEEN HER AND LYRA
SUNSET ENCOUNTERS CHERRY BULLYING KIDS

Under her power -- well, there was bullying and extortion abounds, but it was
centralised. Orderly. Controlled.
And now it was not.

Usually she'd drop a word to one of her minions. LD, Gilda, Spot and his boys, all
the jock-headed children keeping each other in check, in case she would favor
someone else. Illusion, made out of consent, coercion and trickery - thus was all
mortal power made.

And now the illusion was shattered, coercion was out, and the only consensus the
student body had was that they were better off if she jumped off the roof of CHS
head-first.

She didn't have any power. Whatever was left she was giving away.

Like the girls told her.

Her pace slowed to a crawl, and then she stopped, listening to the muffled laughter
from the inside.

She wasn't the princess of this school. She wasn't going to be the president for
much longer either. No power. No responsibility.

She opened the door and stepped inside.

ESTABLISH SCENE
IT’S CHERRY
AND MAYBE LD’S ATHLETES AND RAINDROPS
WHO DOESN’T WANT TO BE A BULLY
BUT IS PEER-PRESSURED BY LD AND CHERRY
CHERRY CHALLENGES HER

All she had left was bluff and bluster.

Fine.

She had done more with less in the past. She was perfectly capable of doing it
again.

SOMETHING

"Is that what Twilight would have wanted." she tried to sound like Rarity did. Like
she believed those words.

Cherry looked away for a second. That was the princess' power. Even after she was
gone, even amongst the delinquents, her name was still something to invoke by.
"Twilight ain't here."

It just wasn't enough.

"I am." Bluff and bluster. "That's enough." She used to be good at it, but it's
hard to convince others when she didn't much believe in it herself.

"Yeah?" Cherry asked. There was the shadow of fear somewhere deep in her eyes, but
it was faint. "And what you gonna do, Shimmer?" She pushed Sunset back. "You've got
nothing."

"I've got..." an inventory of petty childish cruelties she could do. She couldn't
do. Not any more.

It is most cruel to be kind, sometimes.

She clenched her fists.

But what would the girls say...

"I--"

There was a headache flare with a vengeance, like someone put her skull in a vise.

She swallowed the hard lumped in her throat, "I--"

It was all there, ready for the taking. Her arsenal of petty cruelties, every
poison word, the red-hot anger -- all standing at the ready, and all she had to do
was grasp it -- and she couldn't.

Her pulse thundered in her ears, her breath hitched, muscles spasming. The shove
that made her step back, was almost inconsequential compared to the walls that
suddenly crowded her, the fiery gaze of green flaming eyes looking at her through
the rainbow sheen of the mirror.

"Please." She wasn't sure whom she was asking -- begging. The bullies in front if
her or the shake that was already twisting up the muscles, and drowning her in
sheer panic...

CHERRY AND GIRLS PUSH HER AROUND

AS SHE MENTALLY FALLS APART.
THEN GILDA COMES IN
"..Please."

"She said please, didn't she?" Gildas large shadow covered hers.

Cherry and her girls stepped back.

It was one thing to buy nice leather pants, tastefully pre-worn-in in all the right
places, and heavy metal studded boots that cost as much as months rent in some
parts of town and call yourself a punk.

And another was Gilda. Here in nice private school not by the grace of rich
parents, but by Sunsets power.
And her long time with Sunset, well, it did not improve her disposition at all.

Playing tough and entertaining yourself with casual cruelty can only get you so
far.

"Come on there Shimmer. Breathe." Heavy hand landed on her shoulders. The feeling
of it's with, the sharp nails against her skin. The pain grounded her.

Right.

"I usually dont even try to follow your schemes, Shimmer. But this--" Gilda set her
upright with one yank "--this was pathetic."

"Thanks--

"I thought you were back, Shimmer." Gilda said, as she was coming to. "Didn't take
you for one to get the jitters after a knockdown.

GIlda gave her another look, and shook her head. "Get into the fight, or I'll find
someone who will."

A BIT OF POST-SCENE SOUL-SEARCHING

INTERMISSION 3 (YELLOW) - BURNT OFFERING:
[dg]

The sun was beating down on the desert, bright and yellow, despite hanging low in
the sky. She stepped through the burned, broken gates, following the trail of
destruction - burned houses and glassed sands.

At the centre, there was a fountain, still intact, the high streams of water
reflecting rainbows in every colour, and a filly stood there, as still as a statue
herself, deep in her thoughts.
“Hi,” Sunset said.

"Hi!” The filly turned towards her, apparently having come to a decision. “I'm
Sunset!" she introduced herself. She really was - tiny and orange, red-maned and
green-eyed. “Are you here for me? I think I’m ready to leave now.”

"I'm Sunset too," Sunset agreed, taking the girl by the hand. “And I suppose I am.
Where are we going?”

“You tell me.” the filly looked around, uncertain. “I think that’s your road.’

There was a road indeed. Not quite the yellow-brick road of the stories -- it
started here, on the wind-dried desert and twisted away, through forests, and
valleys, down into the darkness of the rapidly approaching night.

“That’s where you want to go, right?”

Sunset shrugged. She did not remember choosing to go there, but that was the road
she was on.The first step was already taken and with it came the heavy knowledge of
what had to be done.

"Let's go, then." She gripped the little hand tighter and made another step.

They walked, hand in hand, or hoof to hoof. The sun, the colour of molten gold
reflecting off the sand around them, played off the dunes shifting under the winds.
Dunes gave way to the plains, then - a forest, where mistletoes joined the trees
together in a single canopy, and wild roses grew in every shade of yellow, until
they stepped into the field, where the air was so crisp and cold it burned the air
in her lungs.

It was a battlefield covered in snow, red and white made golden by the rays of dusk
- but the battle has already ended. Nothing moved there amongst the corpses, except
the ravens, too full to take flight. The road was almost lost in the snow here,
and her hooves sunk into the ground flowing with rivulets of blood.

There was a lot of it - streams and puddles

Too much of it had been spilled -- so much that the earth could not drink it
anymore.

A Lion, his mane as bright as the Sun, his coat as shining as the gold, stood
there, his yellow, slitted eyes as big as the world itself. He smelled of sunshine
and daffodils. He reeked of death and deep, ancient magic and the sweet-rotten
smell of meat.

And a girl stood by the monster's side, braiding his fiery mane.
"This is not murder," she said with grave seriousness, alien to her tiny frame.
"It’s a burnt offering -- an aroma pleasing to my Lord."

It didn’t make anything better. Not by much.

The sun -- still as yellow as the lion’s eyes moved across the skies as they went
through the battlefield, too numb and despaired to care about the carnage, as the
monster and the girl watched them silently.

"It's getting darker," little Sunset finally broke the silence. "The sun is going
to set soon."

"Don't worry," Sunset tried to sound encouraging. "We’ll make it rise again." The
words unsaid felt bilious in her mouth. “We just need to get to the middle of the
road.”

“You mean the end of the road, right?” The girl giggled.

Sunset shook her head. This road had no end -- it only had the first step, the one
she had already taken, and the heavy knowledge of what needed to be done. The place
where she was taking the girl to would be but one out of many stops on it. “Let’s
go,” she said instead.

They walked on, that dream walk that never seems to cross the distance until you
have already arrived.

Through the valley, and the ancient ruins of a city vast and dead, where ziggurat
towered, long since abandoned, down the seemingly infinite stairs, beginning and
end of which were lost to darkness, towards a cave.

There, the crude dolmen of stone protected the entrance. There were words above the
entrance to the cave, she knew, the ugly, zig-zagging cursive in the rough stone of
the dolmen, that a thousand years under water could not smooth out.

She could not read them, but she knew the script -- back when she was awake. The
angular, uneven lines, the ragged cursive, the symbols that looked as if they would
like nothing more than to jump off the page and stab you in the eyes. And she knew
the ominous message they carried:

"If you love truth more than pleasure, enter. Otherwise, let rest."

“I don’t want to go in.” the girl said. “It’s scary.” She pulled silently on her
hand, away from the cave and its terrible warning, back into the waning light of
the sun.

"Do you not like the truth?" Sunset tried to tease, but it came out heavy and sad
instead.
“It's scary.” The girl repeated. “And dark. And I don't want to go.”

But the first step was already taken, and Sunset knew what had to be done.

“That’s why I’m here.” She pulled the girl in, and in they stepped, “To guide you
through the scary places.” The girl followed, finally accepting it too.

There were mirrors there, shining softly in the darkness. where they walked. Clear
and mercurial, they were almost invisible, and the reflections they cast were odd
and distorted.

The mirrors were all true, even though none of them - accurate. Sometimes they
would show them both as children, or her with a flaming-red coat, or a flowing
rainbow mane. Sometimes little Sunset would come out with a lilac coat and purple
bangs, sometimes as a pink girl with a little crown on her head or a silver-grey
filly.

It was all true, and none of it mattered. The first step was already taken, and she
knew what had to be done.

“We’re here,” little Sunset said, still surly.

And here they were. This was it — the final chamber, wide and high, dozens of
pillars stretching towards the ceiling and the golden light of the roughly
punctured roof making their shadows deep and stark.

The centre of the chamber was occupied by a shallow pool of water, unnaturally
still and dark. From the middle of the pool, rising seamlessly from the water, a
tablet stood, ancient, cracked and marred with old, dried-up blood and hoarfrost.

“You can do it, Sunset,” the little Sunset said, settling upon the large, flat
stone. “That’s why you’re here. That’s what you were made for.”

Sunset nodded. She knew it to be true, and just as she knew that in her hand, there
was a knife. It was always there, since she started on this road, its serrated edge
like the teeth of a key. She got so used to the weight of it, she forgot she was
even holding it, and where she touched it, its poison seeped into her veins, making
her coat blood-red, and her skin pulse with bloodshot veins.

The knife went up, her hand rising almost by itself.

"Do it." The grey-coated mare said. Her flaming-red wing was burned and broken, her
face one giant swollen bruise, but even through the broken teeth, you could make
out the words."Do it!"
She had to do it. There was no other way -- so that the Sun would rise again,
sacrifices had to be made. This one was easy -- it was just herself she’d be
sacrificing. So why was she hesitating?

“You don’t have to do this, Miss Shimmer.” A yellow mare, svelte and gentle, said,
her pegasus wings a-flutter. “There has to be another way - a negotiation, a
compromise…”

It was a curse, sometimes -- to see. To be unable not to see. The tension of the
spine, the tremor of the hoof, the shifting eyes.

Fear.
[red[Power[/red]

She let it fall. Down, towards the little Sunset splayed on the rough-hewn stone
table, ripping through the tight resistance of the golden-yellow flesh, feeling the
dull crack of the ribs breaking like bursts of fireworks, blood glinting like
diamonds in the yellow light of the torches, reaching towards the red, pulsing
prize within.

The sun rose, and she woke, looking at the blood-red sunrise outside her window.
CHAPTER 11 - THE MAGIC
SUNSET IN CAFETERIA PONDERS CHESS
SHE RECREATES THE POSITION FROM MEMORY
ESTABLISH HER PLAYING CHESS WITH ZECORA [dh][di][dj]DURING SESSIONS
Some nebulous amount of time has passed
At this point Fleur has taken Dramas and Fashion headed by Suri, who also is
running for SBP. This has to be demonstrated.
Rarity stands up her friends a couple of times (the first one in this chapter) to
go to Fleur’s wild parties, her studies flag, etc.
[dk]
She also starts to get bouts of manic inspiration, as in Inspiration Manifestation
Look up in Inspiration Manifestation. And GAPs fic.
First Anon-A-Miss happens, dissing Cherry with some of Sunset’s old blackmail
material.
Mention that Fido and Rover are struggling in class.
And they’re rather annoyed about it.
Annoyed at Sunset specifically.
Something relatively tame, like a pic of her in sundress, doing something super-
girly
SUnset knows where it’s from, but says nothing
Rarity likes the column, AJ thinks it’s gossip-mongering and bad
and if she ever gets her hands on that Gabby Gums characters,
she’d give them a stern talking-to
Fleur gifts Derpy a nice thing -- Rarity made her a dress and stuff. To show off.
Derpy is super happy about it, cause she’s from a piss-poor family
and it’s literally the only nice thing she has ever had.
All in all, she feels not-terrible. Yeah she has no power, but she has friends.
BUu in the background bullying escalates.
Sunset tries to ignore it as much as possible
Not get in trouble
Take refuge in her powerlessness
Sunset wants to help Lyra but is refused.
Reestablish Flash
Fleur now sees her as easy target

Sunset goes to mentor Diamond and Susnet

"All right, let's hear them. Diamond, you go first."

Sunset clapped her hands in anticipation, as the girls fidgeted in their seats,
preparing for their weekly lesson.

"OK, sure." Tiara frowned in concentration.

"Chil kiddo, just close your eyes and remember. Ten words, easy-peasy, right?"

Today was Thursday, and that meant lesson time for her students.

And first of those was homework. The one from the CHS would be next, but for now,
she would look at the tasks she herself had assigned.

Diamond, sitting on her high office chair, still entirely too big for her, closed
her eyes. She breathed slowly, and a few seconds later she started to recite from
memory: "Ladder, gown, knife, flag, forest, anchor, book, guitar… abacus and, and…
and a lighter"

"Got it in one, good job. Silver, you're up, you got fifteen."

Silver, choosing an armchair, for now, did not do quite as well. She did remember
the thirteenth word, and fourteenth with some prompting, but completely lost the
"carpet" in the end.

"Well, not bad, either way. Remember girls, a good memory is not a talent, it's a
skill. It requires training and exercise. Diamond, ready to try with fifteen? Might
catch up to Silver this time."

A nod teetered the tiara on Diamond's head, and Sunset started the exercise, this
time doing it herself as well.

She closed her eyes and opened the doors that were always present in her mind, to
enter the Canterlot Castle.

She trotted again along its marble floors, her hooves clicking again the cold stone
and breathed the clean and sweet mountain air. The bittersweet memories of her
adolescence assaulted her from every corner, but she ignored them. She wasn’t here
to reminisce, but for a specific purpose - she simply wanted to keep something she
did not want lost.

By the door she imagined a bow-pony, aiming a longbow at those who would enter, and
ignoring his frozen figure, she proceeded down the corridor.
A pack of Timberwolves eyed her hungrily, as she walked, and she threw them a big
white bone. In the throne room, a fire was burning, while the noble guests were
frozen in mid-pirouette. Zig-zagging between them, she made her way to the throne,
leaving smudges of black paint on the white marble floor. On the throne, she placed
a white Queen made of ivory and gold, which was probably cheating a bit.

She kept going on through the rooms, scattering thirty random items - fifteen per
student, adding them to other items, facts and figures scattered across the castle
that she remembered better than the back of her hoof until each took place in their
allotted corner of the memory palace. The same way she knew Diamond has put hers in
the corners of the imaginary Rich Mansion and Silver - in the classes of the
school.

Except unlike the girl’s memory locations, hers was vast and complex, enfilades and
halls, whole libraries worth of knowledge she has accumulated and chosen to save,
some of it locked even from herself until she had the need of it. Theirs were a few
rooms large, if that, and vague, barely enough mental space to store a few items…
but they were getting better.

"…amber, glow stick, storm. Got it, or do you want me to go again?"

Silver repeated the last ones silently and shook her head.

"I'll remember"

"Attagirl. No writing it down, and I expect the both of you to remember all fifteen
next week."

The girls did not say anything, but the eager anticipation hung in the air so thick
you could cut it with the knife, forcing Sunset to reaffirm her old promise.

“Once you get to fifty, I’ll teach you the card counting tricks, and then we can go
test it out in Las Pegasus.”

How she would be able to swing it with her rapidly dwindling funds, she had no
earthly idea, but she did promise, so there was no way out of it. She’d just have
to figure something out.

She sighed and added another point to her quickly growing list of things that
needed fixing.

“Now, there’s a certain matter of Maths homework I believe you owe me?”

That put a crimp in their smiles. Tiara’s mostly -- Silver seemed to enjoy her
academics much more. Now somewhat less enthusiastic, both have passed their
notepads to Sunset, who started going through the sets, checking their answers.

Something caught her eyes almost immediately into the advanced set she gave the
girls.

“Diamond,” she turned to the pink girl and looked at her strictly, “did Silver help
you with the second set?”

“No, I did them all by myself.” She did not pause in her answer, and her tone was
as level as always as she continued to swing her legs carelessly without missing a
beat.

“Well, at least you’ve been practising your lying.” Sunset sighed. “Grasshopper,
what did I tell you about mathematics?”

“Mathematics is the foundation of all knowledge.” Tiara droned obediently, “You

cannot build anything without a solid foundation.” She leaned back in her chair.
“But it’s so boring! And besides, how did you know I was lying?”

“I’ll tell you when you finish doing your set.” Sunset gave Tiara back her
textbook. The girl pouted, but, knowing that there was no escape, turned back to
the table and started working through the questions.

“So, what’s the plan?” Silver, lying down across the armchair, and staring at the
ceiling, asked. “Things don’t look great in school. Nolan’s no longer playing ball
with us regarding the Dramas, Lightning Dust’s not even talking to me, and even the
Middle school is nearly out of control.”
[dl]

“We keep to what we agreed on last time,” Sunset lied. She couldn’t tell them. Not
yet, not when they were so trusting, so eager to help. Not after all she had
promised before. “Move to phase two.”

“Wait, phase two?” Silver Spoon raised her head. “I don’t like phase two. We
weren’t even supposed to have phase two, that was just a hypothetical!”

“Still.” Sunset shrugged again. “That’s the play.”

"You're not locking us out again, are you?" Silver looked her in the eyes.

Checking if she's gonna be ignored again.

Abandoned again.

"We can help. We want to help."

“I'm not abandoning you.” She said it a bit too sharply. “I’m not. I will call on
you when the time comes.” she repeated softer. “Trust me.”
Silver kept looking for a second before she dropped her head back on the armrest.

“Hey, Silver, can you help me with this?” Tiara tapped against the paper she had
been working on. “I don’t get this bit.”

“Huh?” Silver hopped up, and looked over Tiara’s shoulder. “Oh. That’s easy. You
just need to use the Brayes rule here, and…”
Sunset watched the kids, as they silently poured over their books.

“Ooh, I get it now. “Tiara started writing again. “Thank you, Silvie.”

“Always, Di”

‘I trust you, Sunset.’ It was something from her dream, half-remembered half-
imagined, but it hurt, somewhere deep in her chest, as if stabbed by a knife.

"Hey, kids." She clapped her hands, making her students jerk up with surprise. "How
about we blow this joint and go have some fun?"

They looked up with hope. "What sort of fun?" Tiara asked cautiously.

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “Whatever you want.”

"What, no homework, no macchiastallan planning, no, no hoops to jump?" Silver was

even more incredulous. "Not even some sort of weird assian riddle?"

"First rule of life, kids: you gotta have fun," she winked at them
conspiratorially. "otherwise what's the point?" She tapped her chin and tried to
come up with something appropriate. What did kids do these days? "How about a trip
to the arcade? “ She thought about it. "Then go to Gilda’s and throw some knives
with her and her gang?"

"Ooh, I like the arcade. And I saw the handbag that’s an absolute killer at the
mall there."

"I like Gilda’s place,” Silver added. "And we can come back here and watch a movie
after."

"Alright." Sunset nodded. "Soon as Diamond finishes her homework."

"Oh boo." Tiara stuck out her tongue and went back to her notebook.

[center] *** [/center]

That night she fell asleep on the couch in the home cinema of the Rich Manor, two
tiny heads drooling on her shoulders, and that night no nightmares came.
CHAPTER 12 - THE SKIN
It gets worse.
Girls still say she can’t fight.
The box taunts her every time she passess it in the corridor.
[dm][dn][do][dp][dq]
She tries something else, but it fails.
Spot is annoyed she’s avoiding him
Cause girls told her to
Fleur steals Sunset’s journal. They make fun of her over magic and “Princess” stuff
in the changing rooms.

“Dear Princess,” Fleur read with gusto, sarcasm coating every word like poison,
“today I learned about the magic of Griffons and…”

Sunset ground her teeth. To have her journal, her correspondence with her princess
read was bad enough. But those children, they thought it was a game, a flight of
imagination. They had no idea what stood behind those words, the things she did so
that she could write that...

Another burst of giggles went around the room.

THEY MOCK SUNSET FOR BELIEVING IN MAGIC

SOMEONE TRIES TO WARN FLEUR ABOUT STUFF AT THE FALL FORMAL
BUT IT DOESN’T WORK
MORE MOCK

“What, you think you’re some sort of fairytale princess?” Fleur fluttered her
impossibly long eyelashes, her every word -- mock sympathy. “That’s so sad.”

Anger exploded from within her like a volcano, and she let the red-hot thoughts
spill from the hidden, locked place in her mind, and peek at the world through her
eyes, studying Fleur like an entomologist would study an insect.

"Oh magic's real, Fleur. But I am not a Princess. I'm the evil witch." He stepped
up, and grabbed the gilr by the hand.

"Hey!" Fleur tried to pry her hand away from Sunset's grip. "Let go of me you
psycho!"

"Let me do a reading for you. I don't do tea-leaves, but there are other, older
ways."

She knew once the old, true haruspicy. The way to read the truth from the entrails
of the creature still alive -- a magic dark and fickle. But here she wouldn't need
it. She had something better.

A bit of vague triviality.

"You were a pretty girl. A nice, quiet child, ever seen rarely heard. You liked
dolls and pretty dresses, and your mommy liked to dress you like a doll too. And
the cameras fascinated you - like sunflower you turned in the direction of the
nearest flashbulb."

A bit of research, a good guess -- not magic, just a parlour trick.

"Pageants were fun, and your mom would dress you up like a doll and brag to all her
friends. In school your beauty was your weapon and your armour, and everyone liked
you. And then you met Him."

She was moving closer now, looking Fleur right in the eyes. "You never needed the
money. Your mother's silent resentment, her quiet seething envy in her eyes -- that
was jsut a bonus. But most of all you thought it was your due. The adoration, the
attention, it was owed to you.”

But it was the little things that cinched it.

It was in how she moved. In the fear, hidden deep in the bottom of her eyes; the
almost invisible shiver when someone accidentally touched her, in the reflexive
look at the doors whenever she entered the room.

“... And that is why you said yes when he asked you in his office. And why you said
yes again."

Fleur just gasped softly, unable to resist, frozen like a rabbit before the cobra,
falling down the memories she thought she hid away,

It was deep in her bone. It was in her bood. It was written on her skin, and Sunset
could see, was unable not to see the tiniest flaws of her pristine-white, almost
bleached skin, the microscopic cracks and dry cells like chinks in the otherwise
invincible armor of physical perfection.

It was the type of cracks that are usually caused when you use too much hard soap.

When day after day you scrub yourself over and over and over again, trying to clean
away the filth, the impurity that is now seeped deep into your very soul, poisonous
and disgusting, making you feel sticky, degraded. Feel used and discarded, just
like when he petted your pretty little head and your beautiful - dirty - pink hair,
and told you that she you're a good girl, that you'd be a star now.

Sunset let her go.

“...such tiny little flaws on otherwise impeccable white skin. Such a small, small
price for fame, isn’t it?” She finished softly.

Fleur said nothing, her skin deathly pale, lips pressed into a needle thin line so
hard they almost disappeared. But the look in her eyes, burning with cold hatred
was all the confirmation Sunset needed.
TRANSITION
SOMETHING MINOR THAT SETS OUT THE CROWD
OF THE SUPERSTICIOUS AND COWARDLY

"Witch!" Fleur seethed and pushed her away, the nails raking across her shoulder.

"How dare you!" Someone else gave her another shove, bumping her into the locker.

“Don’t look her in the eyes!” Pinkie joined the mass hysteria. “She’ll put you in a
trance!” she looked at Sunset for a second. “Wait, no sillies, it’s just Sunny!”

But it was too late - the panic, not hers for once, grew like a cancer, spreading
through the locker room with every shout and shove.

"Get away from me!"

“Don’t touch me!”
“She’s going to
"Get off me!"

Tossed around by a kaleidoscope of girls, screaming, pushing, shoving, in the

tightness of the locker room, she could barely regain her breath and protect her
face, and the last thing she saw was the grey face, mismatched eyes glowering with
vindictive malice, and a two-handed a push, throwing her clean out the doors.

“Hey!” She tried to hold on to something, to stand up and get back before the doors
closed.

“Lock the doors, lock the doors!” the panicky voices inside shouted over each
other, and before she even reached the knob, the lock clicked shut, leaving her
outside.

“But, but her clothes are still here!” Pinkie’s voice was muffled, but still coming
strong through the door. “You gotta let her back! She’s practically naked
there!”[dr]

Oh. Crap. She was. Stainding in the hallway, with barely her underwear, in the
middle of the school. There were nightmares that started exactly like that...

"Yeah, she is..." there was a burst of giggles, schadenfreude bordering on

hysteria.

"Well, let her magic her way out of it!

"Or into some pants!"

Sunset tried the door, then bashed against it, once, and twice, and again, until
her shoulder blazed with pain, but it only provoked burst squeaks of fear and
bursts laughter from inside. A first ring of the bell ripped her out of her fugue,
and she looked around trying to get her breathing back under control, covering
herself instinctively.

Students would be out any minute now. And they’d see her in nothing but her panties
and a broken bra.

The classroom doors [ds]burst open, and the first students walked out of their
classrooms flooding the halls. The last moments of her invisibility were fading
into nothing, and any moment now someone would shout and point and then they would
be upon her.

They wanted her humiliated, panicked. She would not give them the satisfaction.

There was only one thing she could do.

She took a breath, dropping her hands and letting the broken brasserie fall on the
ground, and stepped out into the hallway, making no attempt to cover up.

Heads turned, and the busyness of the school corridor turned into an abrupt,
shocked silence. She could feel the sticky gazes of every guy in the hall -
curious, lusty, sleazy, scared even. Girls too - less sleazy, more confused.

Let them watch. She owned their attention, as she walked towards her ex, making a
point of not looking hasty, adding an occasional swing of the hips. Confident and
unashamed, calm and collected.

“Oi, Flash!” she shouted casually, spotting the familiar mop of overcoiffed blue
hair further down the corridor. “I need a hand.”

He stared. And unlike his friends -- at her face, not her… everything else, his
brain grinding to a halt, as he tried to process the situation.

“I seem to have been locked out of the changing room. Mind lending me your coat?”

It was almost painful watching the thoughts try to make it through his head. Still,
without the aid of any higher mental faculties, which he was clearly incapable of
at the moment, he dropped his leather jacket off his back and covered her up.

It was not very comfy -- the leather chafed and felt cold against the naked skin,
but it was big enough to cover her from shoulders to almost mid-thigh.

“Walk with me?” She asked, grabbing him by the elbow. “I think there are some spare
outfits in the Carousel Club.”

“Uhm,” he said, almost intelligently, helping her along. “I can---”

A belated flash of someone's phone camera went off, and he blinked, looking at the
crowd.

"Not cool, man." Flash shook his head at some sophomore trying to snap a belated
pic, and the boy actually blushed and lowered his phone. "Come on."

An upperclassman, especially a popular one like Flash Sentry, pronouncing something

“not cool” had an almost magical effect. Phones went away, gazes turned aside, and
she even saw a few boys tapping on the phone deleting the pictures they already
made - an act she was sure they will be regretting very soon.

"Guys, can you give us some space?" Sunset looked at the boy's friends. "Please."
The rockers looked at him dubiously, but stepped aside, pushing the crowd back a
little.

"Let's go." Sunset stepped forward, pulling him after her. He followed. Few more
eager for a peak students try to follow, but when Flash looked at them they
stumbled and slowed down. The crowd -- held back by the other rockers, and still
under the effect of the 'not cool' pronouncement and general confusion lagged
behind.

“I hope this is not some stupid way to get us back together, to boost your
popularity or something,” Flash muttered sourly, as they turned a corner “I am not
getting used like this. Not again.”

“It’s not.” She sighed. “Look, about last time -- I was in a bad place. Angry.
Jealous. All-around nasty. But I’m getting better now. I think I want to do better.
So no more pullings strings for me - not on you at least. Promise.”

"I wish I could believe that."

"I swear to you Flash Sentry," she grabbed his shoulder and forced him to face her
"by all that I once held dear - I will never lie to you ever again."

Slowly, he nodded.

“You broke my heart, you know.”

“I’m sorry...” she sighed at the helplessness of her voice, “Not for breaking up,
but for the way it happened - and for leading you on so long. You’re a really nice
guy, it’s just that I don’t do “nice”.

He grinned - a sad sort of grin that didn’t touch his eyes.

“Or ‘guys’, am I right?”

“What?” she snapped up, surprised. “You think that just because I broke up with you
I must be into girls?”
“Come on, Sunset, I’ve seen you check out Paisley. And Coco. And that fashion girl
you spend your time with these days. Maybe I'm not as sharp as you, but I’m not
really stupid. I don’t know why you did what you did, and what you were trying to
prove, but I know you didn’t love me.”

“I am so totally into guys!”, she insisted out of sheer contrariness, “I mean, yes,
I prefer girls, but I meant what I said when I made that offer before we broke up.
I don’t love you - you’re not my type, but you’re cute, and a girl has her needs.”

“Well, you have a weird way of showing it.” He shook his head. “The things you
said…”

“Sorry.” She hated that word. She really did. It made her sound so weak. But the
boy was owed that, and more. And she was sorry. “If I could take it back--”

“We’re here.”

[center]***[center][dt][du]

“Nope, nope, nope…” they were all so... frilly. The school fashion club mostly made
costumes for the Theatre and Dramas -- all period pieces or outfits for Shake Spear
plays, but right now she needed something a bit more practical, not something that
would attract more attention. For a moment, she considered a tomboyish small pants-
and-shirt number, and decided against it with another “nope”.

The boy snuck a look at her, and blushed instantly, she noticed with the corner of
her eye. Silly boy.

She turned and looked at him openly, taking him in again. Without the protection of
his coat, he looked smaller. Not muscled - a slender, asthenic build, with narrow
shoulders and thin arms, enhanced by the awkward coltishness of a teenager not
quite finished with his growth spurt, but still wiry and sinewy - more of a
swimmer’s physique, a good shape not born of hard work, but simple metabolism of
youth and a lucky draw in the genetic lottery.

Not her usual style, she affirmed, but still decidedly cute.

“I do regret saying no, sometimes.” He was still turned away as he admitted it.

“My offer still stands,” she said simply, letting Flash’s coat slip off, and
dropping her hands, “even if the other things I said that night were not really
true.”

He wanted it. Badly. She could see his knuckles grow white, his nails digging into
the palm of his hand as he so very desperately tried not to look.

“I don’t want your pity,” he tried to say. “Or whatever weird idea of gratitude…”
Silly, silly boy. Making it so complicated when there was no need for it. Want.
Take. Have. That was all there was to it.

She moved closer, almost close enough for her skin to touch his, and tried to make
it easier for him.

“It’s not that. You don’t give yourself credit, Flash Sentry. You’re handsome,
brave and, on occasion, funny. I offer freely, for no reason except that I want it
too”

She waited for his answer, watching the storm of emotions evident on the boy’s face
with fascination.

Fear. Lust -- the screaming, hot desire, so bright and pure she could almost feel
its heat with her skin. Then the social conditioning piled on top of the primitive
reptile part of the brain: things he thought of himself, and what he wanted others
to think of him, what others told him to think of himself and what he’d tell others
to make them think something of him, a chaotic symphony of wants and don’ts, self-
perceptions and self-deceptions, tangled and contradictory waging a battle within
him. And finally, there came the resolve, washing over all of it like a wave, and
in a fierce, last-ditch fight against himself, he had finally won -- or maybe lost.

“No.” he said, coming to a decision, his jaw tense and set. “You said it yourself -
you don’t love me. And I don’t want it to be… like this. Laugh at me again if you
want.”

She shook her head slowly. “I won’t. The things I said to you back then - I never
thought that. I was just angry.” She shrugged sheepishly, “Apparently I don’t
handle rejection well.”

“Who would have thunk it.”

Sunset ignored the sarcasm and another shadow of a grin. She was trying to
apologise.

“Either way - to choose dream over desire is an act worthy of respect. I can
appreciate that. Friends?”

“Friends.”

She stood up on her tiptoes and brushed Flash’s cheek with her lips - a short,
chaste peck and a sisterly hug… well, except for one thing.

“That’s not a roll of quarters in your pocket, is it?” she snickered, causing Flash
to blush so hard it made her wonder how he had blood enough for it.
“Erm…”

She released him from the embrace. “I should probably get dressed”

“That would be good,” he nodded, turning away.

[center]***[/center]

“Sunset,” he called out to her as she was about to leave, “I don’t remember much of
Fall Formal, but I remember seeing you. You’re not human, are you?”

“I… of course I am! That’s a silly…” she stopped, hand on the doorknob. “Ice and
Nightmares, I promised not to lie to you didn’t I?” she chewed on her lip for a
moment, “No. I’m not. Not really.”

“I thought so,” he nodded. "It doesn't make any real difference to me, but I
thought it might to you -- you know, to know that someone knows you are different
and doesn't care."

[i]Silly boy.[/i]

“Thank you, Flash.”

CHAPTER 13 - THE PAIN
EMPTY CHAPTER
Talk with Luna and Flash “he was a perfect gentleman.”
More stuff is happening here, and the pressure keeps piling on.
Now she’s a target of bullying, not just bystander.
Rainbow Dash is kicked out of being Soccer captain (or some other sports captain),
[dv][dw][dx][dy]
Ousted by LD and Gilda.
Second Anon-A-Miss dissing her for streaking
Fleur is in power, and, after previous humiliation, starts a full-on campaign
against Sunset
Sunset gets kicked out of all the clubs.
[dz]
DIamond abandons her
[ea]
CHAPTER 14 - THE CHOICE
She is made a punching bag, denied and hounded everywhere she turns. Girls sort of
encourage her to take the abuse silently. Derpy maybe tries to protest but she’s
ignored.
AJ blathers out that she’s working and goes to food bank
And it just keeps her feeling angry and helpless and thinking of the snuffbox. And
it feels wrong, and wronger and wronger with every step.
[eb]

Sees girls laughing at Derpy story, which was broken out by Diamond and Fleur.
Rarity is there, looking distinctly uncomfortable. Maybe other girls for the
argument and nascent fight? Sunset may join them to win political pioints, or break
them apart, and they’d welcome her back, but not after what has happened. Thinks of
calling Gilda, but Gilda turns away from her.
[ec][ed]
Finally the strain leads to a heavy nervous breakdown.
[ee]
She feels dizzy during class. Doesn’t faint, but falls over/vomits/something like
that

FLASH TAKES HER TO THE NURSES OFFICE

"Sunset, are you alright?"

"Sunny!"

They sounded hollow, distorted as if coming from so far away.

"Shoo!" A white blotch appeared, closing the girls off. "The lot of you." Redheart
showed everyone to the door. "Except for you. You put her on the bed, boy."

Sunset blinked.

Polyester, rough and itchy, a pungent-smelling pillow, room smelling of chlorine

and disinfectant, a faint note of rubbing alcohol. White ceiling.

The nurse’s office.How did she…?

There was something else. A note in the cacophony of smells that turned her
stomach, a memory beating like a butterfly in the spiders web of her headache.

"Sunset?"

She turned her head towards the sound. The boy was there, and next to him on a
nightstand...

Poppies on the nightstand. She didn’t want to look at them, but even without it she
could sense the saccharine-sweet smell. Black poppies and red mandrake, a thought
floated up her mind - a spell, a potion, a ritual from a world and a lifetime ago,
and it carried her down, and down and down…
INTERMISSION 4 (GREEN) - MAKING CHOICES

"Concentrate, little princess." The mare hit her across the face: a thunderous slap
that made the black-and-purple shadows boil up in her vision. “This is not a toy
for the children or the restless," she continued calmly, watching her stand back
up. “This is a secret thing, taught only to the driven. The focus of your life is
the focus of the spell. Do it again."

She summoned her magic, in green along the horn, and the power rose, all wrong and
out of shape, ripping through her chest like a rusty knife.

She groaned and tried to move her head, making the polyester infirmary pillow slip
and fall.

“Sunset!” Flash grabbed her shoulder, keeping her from falling off the bed. “Miss
Redheart, is she going to be fine? Can’t you do something?”

“She has a fever.” Redheart put her hand on Sunset’s forehead. “You’re burning up,
girl.”

"I'm fine," Sunset protested, trying to push the nurse's hand away. "It's just the
dragonsflame."

"You poor thing." Redheart pushed her down. "Let me give you something for that
fever..."

“You’re gonna be fine, Shimmer. Just lie down, and let Redheart work.” Flash moved
closer, adjusting the flowers on the nightstand, the poppies blood-red against his
skin. “You’re gonna be better in no time. Just breathe.”

[i]Breathe[/i]

The poppies on the nightstand, they filled her lungs, her head with their sweet
smell with every breath she took. That smell… smell of black poppies and red
mandrake, carried her away, to recall pain, to remember fear.

“Breathe, little princess,” the mare said, looking at her pant as she regained her
breath. “You know the right way.” She stepped closer, flowing, liquid movement of a
leopard on the prowl. "You know what to do, pumpkin. You have the means, you have
the power, you know the method. Why do you fight yourself?"

There was tired patience in her voice when the mare coiled round Sunset, cradling
her like a foal. Tired patience was good. It was safe. She never showed emotion
when she was about to start the beatings again.

"It didn't..." She tried to wet her lips with the tongue, and her throat dry-
spasmed trying to gulp. "It didn't work. I need to do better. Be better."

“There are rules to the world little princess. Old as the earth and true as the
sky. No matter what you do. You know what has to be done, and the first step is
already taken.”
“I’m so confused. I don’t know anything anymore.”

“You think it’s hard.” the mare said, crouching in front of her. “You think you
have changed.” The mare looked her in the eyes, so close she could feel her breath
on my muzzle, sweet and a little bit minty. “You know the lesson, child. Power
matters. You have it. Why are you not using it? You need to--”

"Drink this," Redheart put a pill and a plastic glass by the bed. She could feel
the smell of it - sweet and a little bit minty, cover the smell of poppies and pull
her out of her fever dreams. "It'll break the fever. You'll feel better in no
time."

"What?"

She tried to look around. The room spun around, refusing to come into focus.
"Flash?"

"I'm here Sunset," he put his hand on her shoulder. "Here." he picked up the glass
and tried to hand it to her. "You should drink this."

But picking up the cup felt like too much of a chore. Far easier to close her eyes.
To drift away, wafting on the smell of poppies. Black poppies, red mandrake. Pain
and fear.

The searing heat of the river of flame, beneath the boat made out of dead mare’s
hooves.

"Is that it?" The mare walked around Sunset, inspecting her prone form. "Are you
done? Are going back to your prissy little castle to play a good girl."

"No." She strained her legs, trying to stand up.

"Do you want to stay weak?" Another slap threw her back down on the deck, the iron
tang of blood from the broken lip adding to the smell of brimstone and sulfur.

"I don't want to feel like this." She tried to stand up again. "I need to do
something."

A hand on her chest stopped her. "Sunset, you need to lie down," Flash told her.
"You're sick." The effort made her stomach twist, adding the acrid taste of bile to
the smell of the room. The smell of black poppies. “Just take it easy.”

Black poppies, and red mandrake.

Sulphur and brimstone.
"That’s all you want isn’t it. To just lie down.” The sneer in the mare’s voice
lashed at her harder then the kick to the ribs. “To give up."

“No.” She strained against the weakness. The weakness in her limbs, that felt like
they were made of jelly and weighed like they were made of lead. Against the
weakness of her spirit, where the fear hid, coiled around her mind like a snake.
"I want to stand up."

She made another try, standing -- barely -- up, swaying in the hot, suffocating
breeze. "I just don't know what to do."

"Have you learned nothing?" Red mare's words were fire, they were like lash across
her back. "Knowledge is nothing! You have to have will. To fight. To win. To get
things done!" Another thunderous slap threw her down on the ground.

"No matter what you do, pumpkin." her voice became compassionate again. "Will is
everything. And the rules are always the same. Do you have it?"

"I want to speak out."

"Good. Say it loud. Say it to me!"

“I want to stand up!” she couldn’t. But she would. “I want to fight!”

“Good.” the mare repeated, her red mane and redder coat shining dull red of metal
in the light of the flames below. “But you’re too weak. I will lend you my fire
again, little princess." The mare set a cup in front of her, heavy gold and heavy
bronze. "It’ll burn away your weakness." There was no water in the cup. It was
flames, red and thick like blood, smelling of sulphur and brimstone. She hesitated,
fear and alien, princessy thoughts stopping her hoof.

"Sunset," a warm hand -- not hoof -- pulled on her shoulder, ripping her out of the
nightmare. Flash Sentry looked at her with gentle concern. "You need to drink some
water."

“What? I don’t want to..”

“Drink!” Who said that - the mare from her dream and her past? A silly boy by her
side? Fire, red as blood, or tepid water? It was up to her to decide.

She made the only choice she knew -- the quick choice, grabbing the golden goblet
full of crimson flame, and drank, forcing herself to swallow the liquid fire, even
as it burned her throat.

She threw up before she got to the middle of the glass. A spasm rolled through her
body like a wave, threatening to twist her stomach inside out, and she threw up.
Long, rolling retch, and then another, and another. Even after she was sure she had
nothing in her, she was still sick, dry heaving with body-wracking convulsions,
sickly green stuff with an ugly, prismatic, kerosine-like sheen spilling all over
the floor.

She looked at it, revolted that something like that came out of her, and groaned.

“Sunset?” Flash looked slightly greener at the gills, but he was still there.

“Yeah.” she looked at the cup in her hands, and then put it aside carefully.
“Yeah.”

And then she threw up again.

[center]***[/center]

It took several more body-wracking spasms, but now she was truly done. Her throat
was parched, and her stomach hurt as if she did a hundred sit-ups, but she wasn’t
burning up anymore. She reached, tentatively, with her feet towards the floor, and
grabbed onto the boy, pulling herself up.

“Sunset?”

“I’m fine.” She wiped the sick off her face.

“What?”

The familiar stretch came easily, almost without conscious effort -- a wave of
motion from the tips of her fingers to the heels, testing out her body. She wasn't
quite fine yet. She still felt weak, and her first attempt to get back up failed.
But her mind was suddenly clear and light free of the headache and tiredness-
induced cobwebs.

“I’m fine.”

She was fine.

And she knew what needed to be done.

“Help me up, Sentry. I have places to be.”

He held her up, still unsure if he should. “Sunset, the nurse…”

“What is happening here?” Redheart turned over from the medicine cabinet, looking
at the puddle of vomit with her lips pursed. “You need to lie down, girl. You have
an almost hundred-and-seven fever. I had half a mind to call an ambulance!”

“I’m fine.” Sunset repeated again. The fact that she still had to lean on the boy
to stand did not add much credence to her words. “Must’ve been something I ate. I
don’t need an ambulance, and I don’t need to lie down. I have things to do.”

"Get back there right this instant."

Sunset showed her thermometer. Redheart frowned, and tested her forehead with her
hand. Then took her temperature with the thermometer again. A small battery of
tests followed that, until the nurse was satisfied. Or at least less inclined to
make Sunset stay in bed.

“If I hadn't seen the readings on this thing," Redheart shook her thermometer
accusingly "and taken your temperature, I would think it was a bad prank." She
frowned. "I can't keep you here against your will, and I won't send you home if you
don't want it. But you, boy" she pointed at Flash

"Why does everyone call me that?”, Flash grumbled

"You, boy, are going to watch her, and if she feels anything, and I mean anything
at all, you call me or call the ambulance. Clear?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Good. Now get out of my sight. And call the janitor."

[center]***[center]

“Are you sure you’re OK?” Flash still held her by the upper arm, helping her stay
upright.

“I’m…” she sighed. “I’m not great, but I’ll manage. And I do have things I need to
do. Thanks for helping me. Again.”

“Hey, it’s nothing, Shimmer. That’s what friends are for, right?”

She liked that thought. “Yeah. ”

“Um, Sunset,” he started. “Since we’re back to being friends,” he blushed and tried
again. “I know I’m keeping Charlie. But it’s half-yours, so,” he rubbed his neck.
“It still is. If you want it, that is.”

Silly boy.
“I’d like that.” She squeezed his forearm slightly. “Some time next week. But now I
need to go.”

"Go where?" He hesitated when she pulled him towards the stairs. "Your class is
that way."

"I need to do something first."

He frowned, but he still helped her upstairs. Where she needed to go. Where the
ugly yellow box still hung menacingly, under the twin banners for Lyra and Suri.
As if it were just a container for little paper slips.

Which, arguably, it was.

She reached for the notepad, hanging off it, and picked up the pen. She turned
back, towards Flash.

“You’re gonna run for Student Body President again?” He still looked at her as if
she was going to fall any minute, but he made no motion to stop her.

"You're not going to try to talk me out of it?"

He considered it. For all that she called him a silly boy, she liked to watch him
consider: His entire face drawn together and his body stiff as if to declare that,
while the world might be passing by, nothing was more important than getting this
thing right.

"They say now you've done some pretty bad stuff."

"I did." She did promise not to lie. "Whatever you heard, I have probably done
worse. Definitely done worse."

"Well, you're trying to do better right?"

"Yeah."

"Okay."

He nodded to himself, satisfied with his decision.

"That's it?"
"You said you won't lie to me." He shrugged. "I trust you. I just hope it's the
right decision for you too."

"I'm not doing it for me, Flash." she said testily. "I'm..." she waved her hand
vaguely. "Trying to be better."

He just looked at her, clearly trying to find words, before he gave her an awkward
shrug. "Just... take care of yourself, okay Sunset? I don't want to have to carry
you to the nurse's office again."

She hesitated, looking at the ugly yellow box.

She wanted to be good so bad. She wanted it all to be simple. Just give it all
away, apologise, suffer the just punishment. Simple. Fair. Exactly what she
deserved.

But there were rules to the world. Old as the earth and true as the sky.

[i]I'm sorry, girls.[/i]

She and slipped the little paper slip into the box.

[red][[i]I'm back.[/i][/red]

CHAPTER 15 - THE DEBT

THE GIRLS FRET AROUND HER
[ef]
SUSNET ENJOYS IT
[eg][eh][ei]
THEY START DISCUSSING FLEUR
RARITY GEARS UP TO PROTEST
[ej][ek][el][em]

"Behold!" The puff of smoke made everyone cough. "The GREAT and POWERFUL Trixie!"

"Trixie,” Sunset sighed, “You know how the Principals feel about the use of smoke
bombs in the corridors. What do you want?"

"Oh, Trixie doesn’t want anything!" She considered it. "Well, no, Trixie wants many
important things. Peanut butter crackers. Admiration. Acknowledgement of her Great
and Powerful Talents. No homework on Fridays, and especially not in history. Trixie
hates history. It's stuff that already happened, why do we need to learn about it?"
she caught herself. "...Ahem. But no, the Great and Powerful Trixie comes here not
just to awe and amaze, but with a gift."
With a flair and a twist, she suddenly produced the journal -- two-coloured sun,
old leather and all. "Ta-da! The Great and Powerful Trixie believes that this is
yours, yes?"

Sunset sucked in the air. "How did you get it?!"

"Trixie is great and powerful. She can make objects appear--” she twisted her hand,
making a card appear in her spare hand, and then almost disappear back into her
sleeve. "--and disappear. Also, her dorky not-quite-as-Powerful cousins taught her
a few tricks with a hairpin and a paperclip. And...and a magician never reveals his
tricks!" She grinned "Do you want it?"

"Yes." It may have been an understatement. A little bit.

"Well you can have it. Trixie is Great, Powerful and Generous. And…” Trixie almost
purred with smug anticipation, ”they say that Sunset Shimmer hates to be in
someone’s debt,”

“That’s true.” Sunset grumbled.

“And you owe Trixie a favour now,” Trixie continued

Sunset nodded.

“A big favour.”

Another reluctant nod

“A very, very big favour.”

Sunset ground her teeth. An expression becoming all too common in these
frustration-filled days. She needed a better dental plan - the one she used to have
did not cover this world.

“Don’t push it, Trixie”.

“Well, Trixie will call in that favour soon”. Sunset’s retort did not even slow the
girl down, as she stalked around, like a shark circling the prey. “Something that
is very precious to you. Something that you’ve worked very hard to conceal.
Something when gone, you will never be able to regain. Something that would shatter
your social position if anyone ever knew…”

“What is it, Trixie?” Sunset, who was quickly losing her patience with the drama,
cut off the gloating magician.

“Trixie will tell in due time,” she giggled smugly, “And for now Trixie will hold
on to the favour.” with a flick of her wrist and a giant puff of smoke she
disappeared.

“Oh my goodness! She’s GONE!” Pinkie Pie gasped dramatically, appearing out of
nowhere. “Oh, wait, there she is.” she pointed at Trixie scowling back from behind
the classroom door. “Nevermind.”

"Is that the thing that they were talking about?" Rarity prodded the big leather-
bound book. "Your diary."

"It's not my diary -- it's magic. Not just magic -- it's princess' power. My
mentor's last, best gift to me. Whatever I write here, would appear in the twinned
journal in Canterlot. The other Canterlot, in my world. "

"Ooh."

"So, it's a book that you use to text your teacher?" Rainbow Dash poked the old
leather. "I mean it's magic and all, but that's kinda lame-- Hey!" She dodged a
shoulder-punch from AJ. "Don't hit!"

"Well, I for one, am glad that this sordid affair was resolved." Rarity said.
"Thanks to Trixie of all the people."

"Ain't we gonna address who did it in th' first place?" Applejack looked at Rarity
pointedly. "Taking someone's journal, that's more messed up than [rustic metaphor
here]."

“I’m…” Rarity bit her lip. “I’m sure that..”

“Don’t tell me you’re gonna defend her again after all that!”

THE GIRLS ARGUE

THEY ARE INTERRUPTED BY THE JOURANL

The journal buzzed, and rose off the table, glowing with soft yellow light. The
girls stopped talking looking at it.

“Magic?” Rainbow poked AJ who was just staring. “That was real magic, right?”

"It's her." Sunset's voice broke. "She answered."

"The Princess?"

"Yes. I thought she forgot about me. That she didn't want to know." Sunset drew
breath. "I wrote to her. That's why the journal was here in school. I wrote to her,
for the first time since I came to this world. Since I ran away. And now she
answered."
"Well, pick it up!"

"Yeah, you gotta."

"I..." Sunset touched the old leather, running her fingers against the journal.
"This could be it. A sentence for all that I've done. Here and back home. Enough
for them to send me to Tartarus until the stars fall from the sky."

"The Princes wouldn't do that, would she?" Rarity gasped softly.

"No way no how Twilight would allow it." Rainbow Dash clenched her fists, "She said
she's forgiven you."

Sunset moved the journal closer, took a breath.

And opened it.

"To my Student…"

FEW MORE LINES HERE

The lines of copperplate merged together as she read them skipping over words,
until, finally she sighed with releaf. Her trembling hand, has shut the journal
closed, and she slumped in her chair, eyes closed.

“It is. It’s her.” Her hand trembled, and she had to put the journal back on the
table. "I'm being confined to an Equestria, until she orders otherwise."

"Oh, darling."

"How are you supposed to get there?"

"But Sunny!"

"No-no" she opened her eyes back. "You
It doesn't say if it's this one or the
means I get to stay." She smiled, that
already sat on the electric chair they
to stay."
don't get it. I'm confined to an Equestria.
one back home, or even both. It means -- it
smile you see on convicts when, having
receive a last-second pardon. "I can choose

“You’d really choose here?” Rainbow measured her up. “Like, in a school? Instead of
a magical pony land?”

“Yay!” Pinkie squeezed her in a hug when she nodded. “Firends forever!”
“That’s great, sugarcube.” Applejack said, her eyes hidden under her hat. “Good for
you.”

SOMETHING
FINISH CHAPTER
CHAPTER 16 - THE PLAN
She’s also feeling more confident.
[en]
She starts making her moves
She fixes some of the things she’s been lax at
Re-connects with Spot
Scares some Athletes
Maybe rescues Raindrops from becoming a shit person
Gets herself reinstated as head of some academic clubs
The second strike of the Anon-a-Miss.
And maybe the third
She’s angry
She’s cunning
She’s ruthless
Her thoughts/words are red more and more often.
She’s back, baby.
Or at least it so seems.

SHE MEETS UP WITH THE GIRLS AGAIN

Rarity is in excellent spirits, she talks about another get together with Fleur and
her friends, and that she spent entire night sketching ideas, and she wants to try
things after school
Sunset is about to confess to the girls that’s she’s coming back

Sunset put her phone down, and breathed, touching her left shoulder.

The girls start becoming apprehensive, especially after Sunset openly declares that
she’s going to fight for control of the school. They say that they are trying to be
friends, but Sunset is making it
hard. Girls learn of her running for the SBP again. First cracks in their
friendship appear.
Sunset starts to doubt herself again

Sunset has to be a dick. She tells the girls she is going to get back into
power.Girls give the final attempt to talk her out of it
[eo][ep][eq][er][es]

"I'm hearing things..." Rairty started.

"We all are," Applejack added surly.

"Yeah!" Rainbow nodded. "It's all over the school."

"T-they say you're back." Flutershy said, looking away. Her hand trembled, as she
gripped her sleeves. "To what you were doing before.

"That you're running for the Student Body President again."

"That you wanna take over the school."

"Again."

“I am.” Sunset nodded. “I’m doing what needs to be done.”

"We, um," Raritys dainty fingers twisted the plastic spork, "Do you thibk you
deserve it? After all you've done."

ASK HER TO NOT

“Sunset we’re asking you. As your friends.”

[et]

Under their gaze, Sunset slowly picked up her fork, gripping it too tightly, so
that it would not shake. She stabbed a piece of tofu straight through. She chewed
it into pulp. She swallowed.

"Well." Rarity said curtly. "We have our answer."

[eu]

at the end of the day, in detention, she is thinking of reconsidering her decision.
INTERMISSION - IMPORTANT QUESTION
“Dr Zecora OUT” the tablet on the door read. “Dr Id (c.o.s) substituting”

Sunset froze with her hand on the familiar door handle. She would probably not feel
as comfortable talking to someone other than Zecora, and surely Celestia could
appreciate the need to move the session once…

“Do come in!” a sing-song baritone called out from behind the door.

How did he…

Her hand pushed the door open, almost without her wanting to, and she entered the
room.

It looked different somehow. The masks that used to be on the walls were gone. Dice
and cards with meaningless Rorschach ink blots on them lay strewn on the table
instead of chess, and a gaunt, twisty man sat in a gaudy chair that seemed entirely
out of plaсe, drinking an acidic-green drink from a plastic bottle. The pungent,
suffocatingly-sweet smell of cheap incense, so unlike the scents of tea that
usually came with the place made her head spin.

“Dr Id.” he shook her hand vigorously. “Community Outreach Substitute.

“Like this place. A pretty tight squeeze for someone like me, but it’s kinda cosy
if you get used to it. Not very magical though.”

“And--” he peered at her with his yellow eyes that for a second almost made her
remember something - something important, about the horns and the worlds and the
lions, “--you’re Miss Zecora’s mysterious regular visitor. Pleased to meetcha.”

“Sunset Shimmer,” he produced a file from somewhere, flipping through. “Quite a

delinquent, I'm told." he smiled his toothy grin. "No worries. I've been known to
pull a prank or two in my day. Not all of them well received. I’m here to make some
amends, in fact.

“But where are my manners!” he gestured to the other seat. “Do sit down.”

“I’m not a delinquent.” Sunset said evenly as she sat down. The man annoyed her,
and there was something weird about him that set her nerves on edge.

“We’ll see.” He grabbed the cards off the table. “Pick a card, any card.” he fanned
them out towards her, all the meaningless inkblot patterns twisting on the cards.

She picked one.

“So, what do you see?”

She looked at the card -- it wasn’t the black-and-white one blot she thought she
picked. Instead, it was a picture of a unicorn -- a white unicorn on the green
field, rampant and turned to the dexter. “Sol sit supra” she read above it.

“Ah. Still Her creature, even after all of this. Most faithful of the traitors,
most treasonous of the loyal.” Dr. Id made a note in his notepad. “I do love me a
paradox.”

Sunset frowned. Whatever was happening was making less and less sense. “I--”

“Yes, yes, let’s try something else.” Dr Id preempted her. “Associations! I’ll say
a word, then you say whatever is the first thing that comes to mind!”

“But--”

“Uh-uh. I say a word first. And it’s not gonna be ‘butt’. Get your mind out of the
gutter missy!”

She just looked at him, trying to understand if he was joking or not. The results
were inconclusive.

“Excellent. Now say the first word that comes to your mind. After I say a word.”

Sunset shrugged, acquiescing.

"School"
"Homework"

"Square"
"Peg"

"Friendship."
"...Twilight."

"Running."
"Away." Through the magic portal, somewhere far, somewhere where She would not be
there, to look at her with fear - not of her student, but of what she had become.

The associations came faster now, spilling out before she could stop herself

"Love."
"Weakness," a lie and a contradiction, your heart stolen by a thief in the night.

And faster.

"Wine."
"Poison." Slipped quietly to someone you love.

Waves upon waves of memories she couldn’t -- didn’t want to--

"Darkness."
"Laughter." In an ancient pyramid where a thousand shades and shadows cover a dead
mare’s body.

She closed her eyes, trying to will away the unwanted thoughts, but the doctor
continued, each word like a flash of fire lighting up the memories that rose,
higher and higher, until she was dro--

"Fire."
"Pain." Green and thick and hungry, smelling of burnt flesh. A scream - her scream
- somewhere far away. She tried to breathe, just right, despite the pain in her
chest, but the air was thick and viscous, and the walls pushed down on her, head
spinning--

"Horn"
"Arrow." stuck in his throat, red stains on white skin. She couldn’t breathe, her
chest hurt with a burning stab, a maelstrom of nightmares that was dragging her
down into the past--

"Desert."

“Enough!” She clenched her fists shut, and froze in place, trying to catch her
breath. “Enough. I’m done with that game!” slowly, she exhaled. Slowly, she opened
her eyes. Slowly, ever so very slowly, she finally found her way out of the
memories she did not want - did not need right now, and locked them back down.

"Aha." Dr I'd, undaunted by her outburst, looked at her atop his thick horn-rimmed
glasses she could've sworn he did not have a second ago. "I see. Well, that is a
simple case. Quite treatable, really."

"Huh?"

"You have hunger in your blood. His hunger, I'm afraid." Sunset blinked. She knew
that phrase, from somewhere, but she could not quite put her thumb on where. “Quite
a bit of a relapse, I must say. Not many take to it so quickly.”

"Whose hunger?" She asked dumbly.

"His.” Doctor Id repeated. “The monster-maker, the foal-napper, the Mage. His
mark is upon you. But," he leaned forward, and whispered conspiratorially, "I can
take it away. If you want to.” He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “The
question is -- do you want me to?”

“What?” the transition was so sudden, she could not help but be flabbergasted by
the question.

“Are you content to be what you are? Are you happy?”

“I’m…” she tried to calm down, to breathe. ‘Are you happy?’ -- what sort of
question was that?
[ev]

"Things could be going better at school." Understatement, if there was ever one.

“Ugh." Dr Id made a face. "I don’t mean the school or your tiny problems in your
tiny child world. Think big picture. You have seen things…things others wouldn’t
believe. ”His crooked figure became tragic somehow, a shadow falling across his
face, “You’ve seen Power rise and bleed on a bank of a river in a different world.
Heavens rent apart by magic and fire stolen from the dragons. All those memories,
like diamonds in the darkness, lit by the fire.

The small old TV in the corner of the room suddenly came alive. A man was crying in
the rain on the screen.

[note]
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder
of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tanhorser Gate. All those
moments will be lost in time, like tears...in...rain
[/note]

“But you were a child, Sunset.” All the mad cheer gone somehow, there was silence
and yellow eyes looking into hers, suddenly alert and piercing, and there was
nothing funny about the gaunt man anymore. “You still are. You did not ask for
those things to happen to you. And I can take them away. Make them disappear, like
leaves to the wind, like sparks in the night. Let you be just a child again.“

“I’m not a child.” She shook her head. “Not any more.”

[ew]“But it doesn’t have to be that way. Imagine,” his voice turned soft, almost
hypnotic. “Imagine what life could be if you were what you appear to be. Just a
kid, just a student. "Just close your eyes, and picture it." Her eyes closed,
almost without her wanting to. Only his voice remained, silky-smooth, slithering,
mesmerising. "Think about what your future would be like if everything were...
simpler. No grand destiny. No duty. No hunger in your blood.

"That's it. Now all you need to do is just think about it."

She could - she could see it now. As plain as if it were a memory. Earning back
the trust of the school. Being a student, one of many, part of the herd. Forging a
friendship with the girls - a real friendship, one that would last a lifetime.
There would be more ahead. Battles to be fought, side by side. Fantastical
journeys, new friends and new challenges. Then - graduation, a job as a teacher,
here in Canterlot High, at Celestia’s side again. Rewarding work and eager
students, that would learn maths and history, not poison and lies. Going home,
after, to her family. To the children of her own...

No magic, no other Equestria, no memories that she didn’t want to remember, no red-
angry thoughts in her mind.

“But it’s not true.” she protested feebly. “That’s not real.”

"Eh," Dr Id dismissed the notion with a wave of his crooked hand. "Truth." He
shrugged. "If deeds of renown without peer or treasures unequalled aren't quite
your interest anymore, you might as well take the happiness. Just say the word,
I’ll snap my fingers, and you'll be just a girl again. Simple. Happy. Slate wiped
nice and clean. Sweet sixteen and not a care in the world except for the occasional
pop quiz.

“But if that’s not your fancy, hey, you could go further back. You could go home.”
[ex]

Now that -- that hit her.

She could go home.

She could go [i]home[/i]. To see her Mom and Dad again, to come back to Canterlot,
to real Canterlot, to Her Canterlot of bronze, gold and light. To the castle, where
She would look at her, and see her, and not be afraid. Where she could be
forgiven...

“So what do you say?”

He looked at her. She knew he looked at her, even though she still didn’t open her
eyes, as if
afraid the imaginary future would escape her head as soon as she raised her
eyelids.

"No." It was hard to say it. The word stuck like a razor in her throat, but still,
she forced it out.

"Oh?" The counsellor sounded surprised. Or maybe amused.

"I refuse." She pushed away the vision, and forced herself to open her eyes.”I know
who I am, and I am not a child. Not any more."

"Sunset, Sunset," he chuckled. "Sunset, Sunset, Sunset."

[ey]
Something clicked inside him, and he hitched, like a clockwork that missed a gear,
and repeated "Sunset."

"Sunset." A spring broke from within his face, and he started to fall apart,
plastic skin cracking, his eye popping out on a spring, as he repeated and repeated
and repeated her name....
[ez]

"Sunset!"

"Gah!" She woke with a start, gasping for air.

"You can't sleep here. It's detention."

"What?" She wiped the drool off her chin with a sleeve and looked around. The
purple teacher was right. It was detention.

“You can’t sleep in detention,” Cherelee repeated. “And Principal Celestia asked me
to tell you that you don’t need to go to Miss Zecora today. She’s not feeling well,
so she’s not in.”

“Huh.”
CHAPTER 17 - THE BREACH
Emboldened, and hardened in her decision, Sunset reconvenes her dark council.
LD doesn’t come in, Suri doesn’t and neither does Gilda or grasshoppers. Some still
come, though. Spot, third-stringer from Athletes, no one from fashion, Nolan,
Microchip and Sandalwood.
Maybe it’s some sort of party, like that Amber scene. Fundraiser or something like,
Sunset vs Fleur…

Lyra party-crashes demonstratively, she says it’s a matter of the school and she’s
running to represent the student body so nya. Imply that she was actually led there
by someone Sunset planted.

Trixie sort of appears and joins Sunset’s stand. Sunset allows it as she owes
Trixie.

Exemplify Sunsets chameleon-ness in the fundraiser. She's nasty brute to Nolan[fa],

mean-girl popular with Fashion and Octavia, motherly with nerds, tomboyish with
athletes and delinquents, simple and childish with the girls Applejack notices

In the end it breaks with Dramas, Weirdoes and half Delinquents for Sunset, Fashion
with Fleur, Nerds and Ecos with Lyra, Athletes and half-delinquents with LD.
Rockers go for Fashion, Flash hangs near Sunset, but she redirects him and some of
the Rockers to her.

Do they play for it?

Sunset makes an overt fight. It goes not great, but there is some progress. She
patsies some of the bad guys to do bad things, and then throws them under the bus
when fleur’s faction pushes her..

She's also bit paranoid about the favour she owes Trixie so she finds out that
Trixie talks with Zecora too, and steals Zecoras notes, probably off-screen

CHAPTER 18 - THE LANGUAGE

Sunset is back to her old self, and the red is taking over. She drank the fire. She
made the choice
Even though she was asked to.
Something something, finding common language with… someone very unsunset-y.
Probably Fluttershy and the Ecos, but sort of makes the coalition of the cowardly
to stand up to Fleur.
Gilda is out
Zecora discovers the stolen notes.

[center]***[/center]

Sunset shifted uncomfortably. Zecora had that way of looking at you, that felt like
it peered into your very soul, and right now she did not look pleased with what she
saw.

“You took the notes I keep, I know it’s true.” Zecora’s manicured hand tightened a
har on her armrest. “Though I cannot quite prove that it was you.”

Sunset spread her arms, both admitting and denying nothing.

“Still, my notes I write in Zebrahi code. There’s no use in stealing them from my
abode.”

Sunset sighed and gave the counsellor a guilty look.

“You read Zebrahi? Consider my curiosity peaked.” somehow Zecora did not look too
surprised “How many other languages can you also speak?”

“Not many.” Sunset shrugged. “I know a few academic languages - Minotoan Linear,
old Roaman, enough of wenyakwen to read it and understand. I studied Zebrahi
ambassadorial and secret script, but I would not be able to speak them confidently.
Then - some bits of pieces you just sort of tend to pick up: I speak passable
Arabian and Griffinspanian, I know some Hind and I rocker Roarmany, I can fake my
way around Prench. Plus I know about a dozen ways to insult your mother, three
poems, and one really good drinking toast in Urussian.

"So then you could read those notes of mine. If, of course, you took them, which, I
take, you still deny?"

Sunset said nothing. Lying would be pointless, but she was not about to cop to
doing something either.

"Does it feel good to have control?" Zecora asked, finally. "Did fear truly take on
you such a big toll?"

"..." Sunset said nothing. There was little she could say to that either.

"Feels good, does it not? Knowing the secret of somebody's thought."

"It doesn't," Sunset grumbled. "I wouldn’t do something like this just to feel
good. "
"So you do feel bad about your deed. And still you feel you needed it complete? Now
tell me -- why? What is the need to take what's mine?"

[I] Insurance[/i[
[I[Security[/i]
[red][I]Revenge![/i]

She said nothing.

“If not for yourself, it’s for someone else.” Zecora stated the
obvious.”Information is a tool. It gives you power, it gives you leverage, it
sells.”

...
[fb][fc][fd][fe][ff]

…is that what you want?”

Sunset shook her head slightly. It wasn’t about power… well, maybe it was. But not
for power’s sake. She was just trying to do better. "What I want or don't want
doesn't matter." Sunset moved her rook up a spot.

"Does it not? Now that is an interesting thought." Zecora made her move. "I wonder
how does that make you feel. Is it good? Is it bad? Does it not make you ill?"

"There are things that need to be done. Rules to the life." [I] as old as the earth
and as true as the sky.[/i] "I'm doing the right thing. And I decide what I feel."

…
"So, to protect you must destroy. Is that the reason you employ?" She was good. And
Sunset wasn’t anywhere near the top of her game. She frowned.

"I do what I must..." She sighed. "I have no other choice."

...

"It's for the greater good." she had conviction. She knew she was right. Yet it
still came out more like a question than a statement. “I’m trying to be better.”

"What do you want from me? A command? A permission? You won't get to play at
submission. You're an adult, you make your own choices. Conscience cannot be downed
out by other's voices."
ZECORA SAYS NOTHING.
ULTIMATELY SHE HAS NO PROOF
SHE LETS SUNSET GO
BUT TELLS HER TO THINK IT THROUGH
WITH SOME CAVEATS
[fg][fh][fi][fj][fk][fl]
SHE GOES TO MULL IT OVER
FLASH PICKS HER UP
THEY GO TO VISIT CHARLIE
[fm]
CHAPTER 19 - THE FIGHT
Counterplay continues.
Girls step away, one by one. Pinkie and Fluttershy are first to go. It’s not so
much a row, as they just fall away. Anon-A-Miss 2, reporting on Sunset’s
streaking.
Derpy crying in the bathroom. Sunset tries to talk to her, Derpy still apologizes
for pushing her. That means something to Sunset after all the kicking she received.
"Hey."

"Go away!" The sobs, coming from the stalls stopped, just enough to get a half-
choked scream out.

"I'm not here to fight," Sunset said, closing the door behind her. "Honestly. I
just want to make sure you're ok. I know I’m probably the last person you want to
see, but if you want to talk, I'm here. If you don't that's fine too. I'll just...
be here. If you need anything." She sat down, leaning against the wall, and said
nothing, listening to the other girl's sobs.

It was a while, but if detention taught her anything it was patience.

The door began to open, but Sunset just glared into the opening. Whoever it was on
the other side prudently decided to try their luck down the hall.

There was more silence. She wanted to smoke, but she stilled her thoughts, and she
waited.

"She was nice." Slowly, the sobs grew quieter. "You know?"

"Yeah," Sunset said, just to give Derpy the sign that she was still here.

"She was nice to me. Everyone stopped being mean, after the Fall Formal. Hardly
anyone called me Ditzy anymore. They mostly don't notice me. But she was nice. She
and that other girl, the one who helped Twilight. And she gave me the dress. I
don't... I don't have a lot of nice things."

"I thought it would be different. I liked going to school now. Looked forward to
it. Not just because you can get seconds in the cafeteria."
"And I thought maybe you get to feel what it's like to be me. Because you're
terrible. You, with your big girl. You hurt me." her voice hitched. "I didn't want
to go to school then. I'd go to sleep in the evening, and hoped I'd not wake up
again. I hoped I'd just vanish away."

"But this is worse. I don't even know why. I still have the dress. And it's just
words. They didn't even hit me. But it's worse.

"Maybe because you never pretended to be my friend."

DERPY FINISHES
AND IS READY TO LEAVE

"Thanks. For sitting here." Derpy said, finally. "For, um, listening."

"I'm sorry." Sunset answered, hating how small the word was for the things that she
did. "For what happened, and for the things I did. I know it doesn't mean much,
but I hope it helps, a little."

"Um." Derpy sniffled, and shifted behind the stall door. "I'm sorry too. That I
pushed you. In the locker room."

"It's ok." Sunset sighed. "I'm fine."

"I'm still sorry."

"Thank you."

Gilda joins Fleur

[fn]
Sunset tries to break up Fleur and Rarity and almost-succeeds, before she
fails/loses her
nerve.Second chance to show off other clique leaders as either straight-nasty (like
Suri who joins Fleurs petty cruelties) or willing to go along and sell out for
gifts and expediency.
Rainbow Dash is kinda steps away as well.
Small moment of humanity for Sunset, as she just stops and is nice for niceness
sake
CHAPTER 20- THE TRICK
Delinquients and Athletes mostly defeated,
Spot who was her ally, had his brothers bumped down to middle school, and is on
probation
Sunset gets Fleur/Suri materials to completely destroy/humiliate her. Somehow.
Somewhat indirectly, not sure how.
So that it doesn’t make her immediately the bad girl
But in a way that gets LD to join Suri, and seek revenge on Sunset.
Sunset says it’s the last stretch. Her forces are absolutely thin.
Fleur however is severely irritated by the counters.
INTERMISSION 5 (BLUE) - WHAT MATTERS
[fo][fp][fq][fr][fs][ft][fu][fv]
She got her fire… but she’s not going back to who she was.
She’s going to be better.
To do better.
[fw]Just wait and see.
CHAPTER 21 - THE FAILURE
Sunset returns Zecora’s notes
Lyra is being kinda proactive, collecting the vocal resistance around her. Weirdos,
some Ecos, some off-brand Dramas/Fashion etc.But Fleur is winning. AJ joins
Aunuset, and makes peace with Sunset on the basiss of Sunset being right about
politics thing.
[fx]They play chess. It comes out as draw.
[fy][fz][ga]
Says she’ll watch her. And keep her honest.
[gb]
CHAPTER 22 - THE APOLOGY
Sunset seems to be losing, Fleur becomes increasingly secure in her position. She
starts showing [gc]her true colours to Rarity. Maybe also jealous over Blueblood.
Rarity is the last to go.

"Rarity," Sunset tried for the last time. [i]"Please."[/i].

She could've done it differently. She should have done it differently. The way she
was taught, the way that would make the girl think it was her idea in the first
place, the way that would leave her no choice. She didn't. She didn't want to....
and now, seeing the subtle shake of Rarity's head, the pursed lips, the hard
glance, she reaped the consequences.

"I'm sorry, darling, but Fleur is a dear friend. And you..."

[i]Are not.[/i]
[i]Are a hand-me down from Twilight.[/i]
[red][i] Are a monster.[/i][red]

"...tend to see bad in people.We tried to help you,we really did, but..." Rarity
petered out, but what she wanted to say was clear enough anyway. "If..." she
touched Sunset's forearm. "...when you're really ready to change, I'd like to be
your friend again."

She walked off.

Sunset stayed.

Some part of her hoped she'd feel bad. She'd wallow in self-pity, self-loathing.
Even getting another shake, another episode of memories would be welcome. As long
as she felt anything.

But there was nothing. Some distant, red-sharp part of her brain was already
working on a adjustments to her plan, just as she was taught, splitting it into
action points and to-dos, assigning priorities and evaluation probabilities, until
there wasn't a choice, but only the clear road ahed.

Having run out of every other patsie, ally and sacrifice,

She needs Flash, Trixie and Derpy for… something, and then Flash [gd][ge][gf][gg]
[gh][gi]provides the mediation, for Sunset to truly apologize to Derps. They are
not going to be friends, but Dp accepts that Sunset has changed, and Trixie is now
officially a friend.

CHAPTER 23 - THE END

There’s sudden before-battle conversation with Flash.
This chapter culminates in Rarity trying to stand up to Fleur who threatens
Sunset.

"We could've been best friends. You could have been out there with me and instead
you chose that... gutter trash!"

"Darling, please, you're hurting me." Rarity tried to pry her hand away from
Fleur's, but the girl held fast, white fingers digging into Rarity's hand.

That feeling in Rarity's eyes... Sunset knew it well. That fear that enters your
heart when you realise that someone standing right next to you is dangerous. The
helplessness when you know that they can -- they will -- hurt you at any moment,
without any cause or provocation and there is nothing you can do about it.

"Fleur, I'm sorry. I dind't... Please!"

"Shut up!"

Sunset fights Fleur and some of her minions or something. Probably Lightning Dust
and Diamond brothers. Gets thrown around. LD says that Fido ‘n’ Rover want to
‘thank’ her for breaking their bargain, and letting them get bumped down and near
expelled.
[gj]
Then Fleur does the whole self-incriminating villain speech. Goes to her
celebrations.
Suddenly, Diamonds leave.
"You broke your promise." FIdo said, cracking his giant knuckles. "We dun like
being lied to."

"Yeah, yeah," Rover added stepping forward. "We gots bumped down a year. That's not
noice, innit?"

"And we gots to do more whatsitcalled, remedial classes." Fido added, with a whine.
"Can't go pigeon fly, or go gabbin with mates no more."

"Aight, boyos, we practiced this," Spot said, with a canine grin. "What were we
gonna say to Shimmer here?"
"Cheers, Sunset!"
"Yeah, yeah, thanks, Shimmer."

"Wait, what." Lighting Dust turned, to see smiling boys. "What do you idiots mean."

SPOT SAYS IT'S ALL PRE-ARRANGED

[center]***[/center]

FLASHBACK TO SUNSET TALKING TO SPOT

SUNSET FINDS HIM HIDDEN SOMEWHERE
GNAWING AT A PENCIL
AND TRYING TO STUDY FOR A TEST
HE’S APPREHENSIVE THAT SOMEONE FOUND OUT HIS SECRET
THAT HE ACTUALLY STUDIES
BUT WHEN HE LEARNS IT’S SUNSET HE CHILLS A LITTLE
ASKS IF SHE’S READY TO FULFILL HIS BARGAIN
SUNSET SAYS THAT HIS
AND HIS BROTHERS CHEATING HAS BEEN DISCOVERED
BY GABBY GUMS AND FOAL FREE PRESS
AND WILL GO PUBLIC SOON
HE’S GOING TO BE EXPELLED
HIS BROTHERS TOO
HE THINKS SUNSET IS TRYNING TO BLACKMAIL HIM
BUT SHE’S NOT

"I can try to quash it. Or..." Sunset pulled the papers back before he snatched
them. "Or we can go to the Principal."

"Are you nuts?!" Spot jumped off his chair. "Are ye outside of your mind?"

"If I know anything about Celestia -- she will never abandon someone who asks for
help. And I talked to Miss Cheerilee," Sunset continued calmly. "She is willing to
take them to her class. We'll talk to Celestia, they get bumped down a year and get
remedial classes, and this thing becomes nothing but noise."

He hesitated.

"It's your choice." She spread her hands. "You still have my word -- if that's what
you really want, I can make it go away. I'd get them through this, and through this
whole year -- no strings attached. But what about next year? And a year after
that?"

"But..." he sighed and stared at the tabletop. "I can't, Shimmer. I cannot. They're
me brothers. They're like me own flesh and blood. I gotta take care of them."

"You can't protect them forever, Spot." She sighed. "You got them as far as you
could. Now you got to make them walk by on their own."

Spot blanched. "Ma would murder me." He stared at his hands "it would be murder.
Bloody, screaming murder, Shimmer. It'd be my hide hung out all nice out of our
window, wafting gently in the wind."

"Blame it on me?"

"Damn right I will, Shimmer. Ain't no way I'm bringing Ma this news unless I get
someone to share the wrath."

"Hah." That was as good as yes. "that's fair."

SUNSET LEAVES

"Shimmer," he smiled. Not a smirk, or a grin -- a smile. Like a man used to

carrying a heavy load, who suddenly set it aside. "Thanks."

END FLASHBACK
[center]***[/center]

DIAMONDS LEAVE

"And dun call me brothers idjits, ken?" Spot gave a glare towards Dust. "They just
needs a little more help."
[gk]

Lighinging says she don’t need no idiots to get her revenge on Sunset.
Gilda stops her, easily overpowers her, and chases her off.
Reveals that Gilda and grasshoppers' betrayal was set-up.
Minions run away. Sunset, Gilda, Rarity remain.
Gilda inspects Sunset.

“Dislocated,” Gilda concluded after a short inspection “Want me to pop it in?”

Sunset glared daggers at her. “No, I want to wait for the bloody paramedics.”
Sarcasm was nearly dripping from every word. “I need my arm back.”

“Gonna hurt,” Gilda warned. “On three.”

She grabbed Sunset by the forearm and the wrist.

“One. Two--” She pulled and pushed in a single slow-but-steady motion. Something
twisted and rolled underneath the orange skin, and Sunset swallowed her scream.
“...Three.”

“Ice and Nightmares, Gilda, you total git, I knew you’d do that.”

“Sure you did, Shimmer. Sure you did.”

Sunset stood up unsteadily to her feet, testing out the joint.

“Sun above, it’s been a bloody while since I had to do that. Now!” her hand snaked
somewhere in between the dresses and fabrics and produced a camera, ejecting a USB
stick from it. She promptly threw it to Gilda. “Get it to the kids. They know what
to do”

The bigger girl nodded and disappeared. The room grew silent, only Rarity’s quiet,
sobbing breaths breaking the silence. Sunset waited for a while, before broaching
quietly.

“Rarity, I need make-up. I’ll have to make an appearance, and I need to look
normal.”

Rarity stood up, her eyes still unfocused, and fumbled for her make-up.

“You knew,” she said, “you knew it would happen. That’s why you had a camera here.”

Sunset shrugged. “I tried to warn you.”

The familiar box popped open and Rarity tried to grip a pencil. Her hand trembled
and shook too much, and Sunset covered her pale hand with hers.

“You used me as bait.” Rarity said, still avoiding Sunset’s eyes.

“Didn’t I tell you, Rarity?” She asked, quiet but forceful. “I am a monster. But I
am also on your side.”

Somehow that calmed her down. Her fingers, long and slender, finally found their
dexterity and the pencil danced in her hand.

It was time to put the game face on.

[center]***[/center]

There grasshoppers set up something to show everystudent how much Fleur sucks.
Everything she said in private about other students, all the dirty dealings,
whatever else.

EVERYONE IS IN THE ASSEMBLY HALL

THERE’S LIKE VOTING, OR SOME SCHOOL THING, ETC
SUPPOSED TO BE FLEUR’S ULTIMATE VICTORY
LIGHTS GO OUT
THERE’S A PUFF OF SMOKE
A SCREEN STARTS SHOWING SOMETHING
STARTS WITH THE FIGHT
AND NOLAN, LIGHTNING DUST, SURI AND OTHER MEANIES
[gl] THAT SURVIVED THE FIGHT
AND NOT JOINED LYRA
GABBY GUMS FLEUR EXPOSE
HER BEING AWFUL TO DERPY
AND RARITY, AND OTHERS
AND SOME SORT OF SCHEMING
DIAMOND AND SILVER WORKED FOR SUNSET
AND THAT WAS THE ORIGINAL PLAN
TO PRUNE ALL THE BAD SEEDS OUT OF POWER POSITIONS
IN ONE FELL SWOOP

Silence was short-lived, cut into thin slices by the slow, distinct clapping in the
back of the room.

Clap.

Heads turned towards the back of the scene.

Clap.

Sunset smiled, and her smile made the closest children step back.

Clap.

“Are you not entertained? Wasn’t that fun?” her voice carried easily over the small
school hall. “You pathetic little sheep. The moment you think you get freedom, you
run towards another shephard, another strong hand that will lead you merrily to the
slaughter. A friggin Princess comes from up on high to save you, and that is the
best you can muster? You revolt me, you disgusting little pieces of slime.“

“I resign and I forfeit the vote - whatever. I wouldn’t rule over this herd if you
begged me to.”

“I am not your Princess. I am not your victim. I just don't care anymore. “

She sighed.

“Think before you vote. You all will only get what you deserve.”
 [center]***[/center]

"May I?" The cafeteria was mostly empty, except for the table where the girls sat
huddled around Rarity.

"You!"

"Jackie," Rarity touched Applejack’s forearm. "Let her. Please."

Under their gaze, Sunset found a place at the edge of the plastic bench and sat
down.

“We’ve been watching this… thing your toadies posted on MyStable. All that Anon-A-
Miss dirt, all that stuff everyone did. And your speech too. What was the point of
that?”

Sunset shrugged, deflecting the question. Rarity’s vacant gaze made her
uncomfortable. “You keep telling me how I should be honest, and have fun. That was
me being honest. And having fun.”

“But you're still out of Student Body President. Ain’t no way no how you’d get
elected now.”

“Oh, I’ll win.” Sunset occupied herself with food, “As I said, I need to run things
to fix this school. At least for a while longer. ”

“How’d’ja reckon?”

“Gilda calls it falling to form, I think. If a fighter trains wrong or has a bad
habit, once he gets tired or groggy from the punch and doesn’t have any strength
left to control himself consciously, he returns to what his reflexes tell him to do
- even if it’s a mistake.

“This whole dirt fight, between me and Fleur systematically eliminated and
discredited anyone else who was willing and capable of filling our positions. So
now that I punched them in the face and made them reel, without any other real
options they will turn to what is familiar. Which is me.”

“I told you that would happen,” Sunset said in the oppressive silence. “I tried
to…” she sighed. She failed. She should admit it. “I couldn't just do nothing.”

"Rarity here says it was all planned. It was, wasn't it. You lied to us all this
time. Schemed behind our backs."
That hurt. "No I didn't!" She shook her head. "Yeah, I knew it would happen. I told
you as much. And I did have a plan. But it was a different one. Neater, in some
sense. But I did put it away. I did trust the students.”

DIAMOND AND SILVER COME IN

[gm][gn]
GILDA TOO
SUNSET EXPLAINS THAT
SHE HAD A CONVERSATION WITH THEM BACK IN CHAPTER ONE
[go][gp] TELLING THAT THERE WILL BE SOMEONE TO RISE AGAINST HER
AND THAT THEY WILL JOIN WHOEVER IT IS
EXPOSE ALL THE BADDIES
SET UP A BETTER SYSTEM
THOUGH SHE EXPECTED TO TAKE POWER HERSELF
[gq]
DIAMOND SHRUGS
[gr]
SAYS SHE’LL BE RUNNING THE SCHOOL
BY THE TIME SHE’S JUNIOR
SHE AND SILVER SKIP MERRILY TO THEIR CHILDISH DUTIES
HAVING COMPLETE TRUST IN SUNSET’S VICTORY
***

“And now we wait.” She her smile grew wan, when she turned back to the sombre
audience, still digesting the news.

“Ain’t nothing more to do.” Applejack agreed neutrally.

So they did. Time stretched on, as somewhere in the assembly hall final quakes of
her declaration died down, as the votes were counted and tallied. Minutes ticked by
in silence.

Eventually, Sunset picked up her chess set, setting up the few remaining pieces.
The position wasn’t great -- unless she could come up with something the game was
pretty much lost for the black. But at least it helped pass the time….

“Hah! Lyra was elected. Seems your strategizin’ was a bit too clever by half.”

She looked at the phone. Six o’clock. The counting stopped, and the school MyStable
was all abuzz with it now.

Sunset sighed and pushed the red king, dropping it. The game, even she had to
admit, was hopelessly lost. Her tone, however, was far from defeated. “Wait for
it.”

She ate her apple in silence, the crunching carrying over the table as they waited
for whatever “it” was.

Lyra came up to the table, and coughed softly, attracting attention.

“Uhm, Sunset, can I talk to you, please?”

“What is it, ‘Strings?” Sunset seemed awfully interested in her apple, even going
as far as to bite it with another deliberate loud crunch. Somehow that made her
look even more smug and self-centred.

“Well, uhm, I know you said those things, and that you don’t want to do any more
administration stuff, but… I wondered, if, erm, as a previous Student Body
President, you could, erm, help me out?”[gs][gt][gu][gv]

“Hmm.” Sunset pondered the question carefully, ignoring the burning gazes of the
other five girls at the table. “I don’t know, Lyra, with the midterms coming up, I
don’t know if I’ll have the time…”

“Come on, Shimmer. I could use your help.”

Another bite of the apple, and concentrated chewing prolonged the silence.

“Sunset!” Applejack scowled.

[small]”spoilsport”[/small], Sunset mumbled, rolling her eyes. “Sure thing, Lyra,

I’ll do my best to help you out. How about we start tomorrow after classes?”

They all watched the new Student Body President retreat back to the crowd of her
friends, still not-quite-believing that she actually won… and no longer sure if it
was a good thing.

“Sometimes, I’m plum ashamed of my species.” Applejack grumbled.

“Don’t think it’s a species thing if that helps.It's just that I always win. For
me, there is no other way."
[gw][gx]
She stood up. "I'm working on it but it's a process, I'm told,"

"Not always." still sullen, Applejack nodded towards the chessboard. "You don't
always get to win."

Sunset sighed. "AJ. When I play with Miss Zecora - I play white."
INTERMISSION 6 (INDIGO) - DREAMS AND REFLECTIONS
SUNSET IS FIGHTING THE AVALANCHE OF NIGHTMARES
COMING THROUGH THE BROKEN RAINBOW WALL
THEY ALL FLASHBACK TO HER PREVIOUS DREAMS
AND HER PREVIOUS ADVENTURES
“Enough.” She raised her hand, and her voice rang with the power of a Princess. “I
am done with this.”

[gy][gz]
ANOTHER SUNSET COALESCES FROM THE NIGHTMARES

“I don’t come from the Gates of Ivory, little girl. You regained some of your
power. But your borrowed power cannot chase me away. Nothing can.”

“That is true.” Sunset nodded. “But you’re not from the gate of Horn either. You’re
not a dream,. You are there when I wake. The one who gave me the fire. The one who
stoked my anger. The red voice in my head pushes me to do things. What are you?”

"I am your shadow.” The other Sunset said, and the darkness behind her shifted as
her shadow stretched through the mirror, coiling ever darker around them, dimming
the lights. “I the poison you let in your veins, the hunger in your blood. A the
terror that follows you into your waking hours to lend you strength. I am that
which works evil whenever you will good."

“Nightmare.”

EVIL SUNSET DEMANDS SUNSET LET HER TAKE OVER

LET THE ANGER FLOW
REJECT HER FRIENDS AND TAKE HER POWER
[ha][hb][hc][hd]
DO WHAT MUST BE DONE
[he]
FOLLOW THE ROAD
LESS EVIL SUNSET REFUSES

“I know what you are.” She stepped forward, and for the first time, the Nightmare
recoiled. “I know your true name.”

“You are not my power.” her hand gripped the shoulder of her reflection, fingers
digging into the darkness made flesh.

“You are not my anger.” She pulled her in.

“You are not my darkness.” Her hands grabbed her tight.[hf][hg]

SUNSET HUGS HER

THE OTHER SHIMMER STRUGGLES AND PROTESTS AND THEN HUGS BACK

“You’re just me. And I accept who I am.”

And then she was one.

It was no longer dark. Not even behind her eyelids, an insistent ray of sunshine
finding its way into her room, and bothering her awake.

She smiled.

It was a new day. And ten thousand new roads lie ahead, waiting for her to take the
first step.

[a]I know this bit isn't right, but I'm not sure how to fix it.
[b]I'll think on how to improve it, but I definitely want to keep the Jungle Book
reference.
[c]The flow could be better
[d]Run on sentence
[e]I had in my fics oftentimes mentioned "cause before action" or order of action.
In this case the hug is the last thing Pinkie did, first she jumped and tackled her
to the ground.

Just my suggestion, but I think something like "The biggest surprise was from
Pinkie Pie, who suddenly jumped from her seat to glomp Sunset, nearly tackling her
to the ground to give her an unexpected hug." would then have that "rule".
[f]Wasn't Rainbow still not trusting Sunset based on the snorting?
[g]She was. But she's also willing to give it a try. Cause she's awesome, and they
voted.
[h]Of course she doesn't. She's the element of honesty. But Sunset doesn't know her
well yet, so it still makes sense.
[i]Suggestion:

"She needed allies, since the whole school would soon be coming after her. But even
more than that…
[j]Was just about to comment this.
[k]I personally would cut this
[l]why?
[m]I don't think Rainbow Dash ever says this in the show but it just feels so her.
[n]Gilda being Sunset's "bodyguard" fits so well. I love it.
[o]LOL. Your characterization here is amazing.
[p]Shouldn't there be a headliner or a bigger paragraph because of a new scene?
[q]hm. Maybe... I'd have to rewrite a bit to make it a separate scene, make a
cleaner transition...
[r]If doing a smoother transition isn't doable, then a headliner is definitely what
to go for.
[s]Move it to apologies?
[t]Two Principals (counting VP Luna), who share the office. Possessive of a plural
noun means apostrophe at the end
[u]You should give a proper entrée into the conversation to Celestia.
[v]Huh, so Luna is in Celestia's shadow even in the human world.
[w]Rubicon?
[x]I should probably ponify it...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Rubicon
[y]Oh! Instead of ponifying it, you can just replace it with "The line was crossed,
etc." so everyone can understand it.
[z]Isn't CHS a public school?
[aa]The show kinda implies it is, but realistically with the facilities they have -
no way its a public school.
[ab]I know I've only read through the first chapter so far, but I have a feeling I
will love this story.
The characterizations are wonderful, the insight into Sunset's thought process just
make so much *sense*, and are so much more in-depth than what the show gave us.
Also, on a more technical note, there isn't much that needs fixing, so that's a
bonus too.
[ac]The last few paragraphs were really well-done. The way you write Sunset's
thoughts is accurate in a way I have only seen in a couple other fics, and the
descriptions are very detailed.
[ad]Love his this immediately makes everything clear
[ae]redo
[af]And about a million dresses in various states of finish.
[ag]probably breaks down the mood though. BUt I should establish the dresses.
[ah]Well, you have two options.
1) Emphasize Sunset's thoughts and dread, and not add the dresses part.
2) Lighten the atmosphere and put less emphasis on Sunset's emotions, and add the
dresses part.
[ai]If it was a secret what happened to Derpy, how was it an example?
[aj]If she's willing to resort to this level of violence, why didn't she assault
Twilight?
[ak]She'd be an example because if someone who goes against Sunset suddenly drops
out of school for a few days, stops acting against her and generally gets scared at
the mere mention of the name of Sunset, everybody can reasonably assume that she
did something really bad to her, even without knowing the details.

The last one is a very serious question. I don't think her actions during the Fall
Formal were really well-thought-out and I'll try to address it down the line and
maybe in the Tiara scene as well. It will definitely a challenge to reconcile how
she acted in the EQG1 with how I write her.
[al]Love how in this AU Sunset is not alone doing the terrorising. Looking forward
to see how the others in her previous group will react to her change etc
[am]I'm unsure whether to change the verbs in this paragraph from present to past.
It would be more grammatically correct to do so, but, ya know, characters don't
always have perfect grammar when speaking.
Personally, I think it adds to Sunset's dialogue, but I want to point it out
nevertheless in case you want to change it anyway.
[an]Did you forget to put some words here somewhere? I understand what you're
saying but it's worded weirdly.
[ao]Doesn't that contradict with the passage "Somehow that sole act of petty
cruelty stood out against all the other monstrous things she’d done"? I mean, I
still see that it makes sense and Sunset would say that, considering the Celestia
thing, but it's up to you if you want to keep that act as "just the tip of the
iceberg"
[ap]Oh, she's done _terrible_ things. This kinda stood out to her, for various
reasons, but objectively speaking on the scale of monstrosities she's done, it
doesn't even register.
[aq]This is incredibly vague and has no real meaning.
[ar]Seriously, just: I saw who you were, after you'd lost the fight' would have
been fine.
[as]Though that raises another problem I just noticed: People don't change until
they've been brought to bottom of the barrel. Sunset has no reason to try and
reform, as can still re-assert control over the school at any time. She isn't truly
suffering. Seeing Sunset suffer, and prevail despite of her suffering was one of
the factors that made the other reformation stories so appealing.
[at]To the former - no, that will be an important plot-point later on, when she
does her own Frienship Voltron thing. I am trying to set up a Chekov's Gun here for
like chapter forty or something.
[au]As to the latter, generally, I strongly disagree with the need for suffering as
a motivator for change. Sunset, just like Starlight in the main series is a smart
pony, she can realise when one approach is not working and change it, with a bit of
a help from a friendship nuke and some therapy.
And yes, I think I even stated it in the text rather explicitly that she could just
bounce back to being queen bully, but seeing how last time it was pretty much nigh-
destroyed with one five-minute musical number and a group hug, she kinda notices
that this may not be a great system, nor is it something she really wanted for
herself.

She is not letting go of her power and position, she merely resolved to do it in a
more robust way that won't require of her to make quite as many compromises with
her own conscience, even if it is harder, and use it in a more noblesse obligee
sort of way.
[av]Well, alright. I guess that's true. I'm sorry if I was rude before.
[aw]Especially about grammer; I thought you were a native English speaker.
[ax]It's cool. I've lived here for seven years now (well, almost), I should've
picked up something. I can write an essay, or manual or an academic piece, but when
it comes to dialogue I am utterly lost.
[ay]Sunset knowing perfectly how to read body language after all the manipulating
she has done makes a lot of sense.
[az]Another problem: Why do they want to be her friends? Yes, she needs friends,
but they have no reason to become her friends. In the other stories, they waited a
while before making contact, and Sunset had to overcome her pride before real
friendship could form. it was a process we got to see happen. Not only is this not
earned, but she hasn't even interacted with each of the other characters on their
own yet.
[ba]Why did they want to be friends with her in-canon? Because Twilight asked them
to, mostly, they are willing to give her a chance. That and the whole "touch her
soul" thing I added.

Here though, she mostly talks about Rarity who is someone who honestly makes
contact with Sunset. Obviously they are not besties yet, and with some of the Human
Five she will never be really friends, but she sort of has people who she can
realistically count won't necessarily stab her in the back soon as she turns it,
which is pretty close to her definition of friends.

Might make it a singular "friend" here though, and make it less of a definite
thing, and more like a wishful thinking maybe?
[bb]I always assumed that it took a while for them to warm up in between movies.

Making it more like wishful thinking might make more sense.

[bc]Added two lines to make it more of a desire than a fact.
[bd]It feels for me like the sentence after "and" misses something.
[be]yeh, this is wrong. Will fix
[bf]Throw in stuff about Blueblood being here to see his aunt. And not being
terribly happy about it.
[bg]BORING! Needs more gay. And also, needs more Blueblood being his obnoxious,
salacious, leering misogynistic self
[bh]Nd bck-frth bntr, dick-mesuring
[bi]"Oh, darling have you heard? I have gotten a like on MyStable from
[fashionably name]

"I have!" Fleaur beamed. "When we were having a pre-show dinner drinks in
Vienneigh, she mentioned that she found your design, what's the word, quite cute.
Very novel approach to sequin."
[bj]Not sure if there needs to be a comma
[bk]Reestablish Rarity and RD?
[bl]REDO
[bm]REDO
[bn]Weird sentence to me. Cut the come maybe?
[bo]It feels so good to talk about it. Its been so long... sometime I would think
that maybe I'm crazy. That Equestria - the other Equestria, the land of magic and
ponies was just a dream, a crazy delusion...
[bp]And the old Count…” Sunset hesitated. “Well, he was kind to me once, and I was
cruel to him on more than one occasion."

"Oh." Rarity blushed."You and him…"

"Anyone wants to explain to me who's that count and why he's got Rarity's panties
in a twist?"

"Rainbow Dash, honestly. Do you live under a rock? He's the gossip of all
Canterlot! He's Canterlot’s most eligible bachelor. Fabulously rich, extremely
mysterious. The Vanity Mare did a great expose."

"And you got involved with this fella?" AJ raised an eyebrow. "I get that he’s rich
off his silver mines and the rent-houses in Canterlot -- if the pony one’s the same
as this one here -- but he's bound to be 'tleast twice your age."

"What?" She added when Rarity looked at her. "I read."

"The Vanity?"

"I read a lot of things."

[bq]Who is Rarity talking with?
[br]better?
[bs]"I'm still the Student Body President, though" Sunset noted. "Not that it means
that I get to have my food delivered." she added hastily.
[bt]"Phfait, fyou are?"Rainbow Dash made a heroic effort, swallowing down the
enormous amount of food she was stuffing her face with, and repeated. "You are?
What did we have the whole song-and-dance number for then?!"

"Yeah." Sunset finally gave up and started on her salad. "Princess of Fall Formal
is just a popularity contest. I mean so are elections, but they are still
distinct."

"So we have both princess and a president? Isn't that weird?"

"The whole democracy thing is weird," Sunset grumbled. "But it's all in the school
charter bylaws. We have elections in a couple of weeks. I usually run against token
opposition and win. "

"But you're not gonna run this time, right?" AJ looked at her from under her hat.
What she saw she did not like. "Right?"

Sunset stuck her fork into the tofu, thinking. Stalling. She sighed.

She had a plan

"I have to.."

"What on earth for?" Rarity demanded "To make things as they were? I'm afraid we
wouldn't help you with that, darling, even as your friends. Especially as your
friends."

"Yeah. Everyone was super-mean and kinda sad before Twilight came to our school!"

"I.. I didn't like it as it was before. It was scary."

[bu]She had a plan before, and she'd been wrong. It always ended...

With an arrow in his throat, white and red mixing on the ground.

With a dead mare lying on the ground in a zyggurat.

With his head on broken wings in dust.
With the fear in her eyes, when she saw her student.

With a crater in the schoolyard, all those students look at her like a monster.
Like they would any second now, turn towards her, watching, judging, waiting for a
moment to…
[bv]Mr Hooves looked at them, but said nothing.

...
"I'm not the Princess of this school any more. I can't do anything."

"Sunset, please. You have to..."

....

"Sunset." He squirmed in his seat."Please." His voice dropped even lower. "Guys
tell me that delinquents came by a couple of times. We paid our dues, but she
says..."

"What, your little dalliance with nerds not working out? I thought you guys didn't
need me. I thought she threw a glance at her phone "every time you look at me it's
like..."
"I played ball, you know that! Kept the herd in line, made sure no one rocks the
boat. Because you promised we'd be left alone. Now you have to..."

"Have to." His whining half whispers, his pleading look, the crybaby tremor of his
upper lip. Every red-hot thought in her wanted to strike where she saw him
vulnerable. "Have to." Tell me what to I have to do. Come on. Tell me what I have
to do, other than to "off mysel--"

"Sunset!"
[bw]"Acting out, not paying attention in class...." he sighed. "I know you've read
the textbook, and you know the material already, but you usually at least behave in
class."

"I'm sorry." She sighed. "it's just..." she didn't actually have an excuse lined up
for once so she made a vague gesture instead.

"Sunset, are you alright?"

"I'm fine."

"That thing you did..." he tried and failed to remember what was it exactly that
she did, "that sort of acting out -- is it the burnout? Is your family alright?"
[bx]"Well, if you have any problems - if there's anything I can do to help, you can
always come in."

"Thank you." she kept the terrible pang of shame off her face, even if her words
came out curt and clipped. "I'll be fine. But I did want to ask you something..."
[by]It went about as terribly as she expected.

The girls already looked at her as though she were something that could only be
killed with a stake through the heart at midnight, a half-tame monster on a dubious
leash. And now, her confused explanation only served to scare them even more.

"Do you not like it?" Irises wide with fear, there was unbridled panic in Aqua's
eyes.

"We could come up with something else." Hands twisted together in supplication,
face pale, Roseluck whimpered. "I-if you'd like."

Coсo just looked blank. Fingers gripping the tabletop, eyes cast down, shoulders
hunched... trying to figure out what went wrong. What she did wrong, how she was
to blame for their failure.

[Red]pathetic[/red]
"Pathetic!" It wasn't her who said it -- someone stood up from the fringes of the
Athletes' tables instead. "For goodness sake!" Lyra stood up. "Would you grow a
spine, you three!"
[bz]But at least they nodded in all the right times, and whimpered some half-
hearted assurances that of course, no harm done, they understand, they're so very
very sorry, and Coco looked down, feeling guilty, trying to figure out how it was
her fault, how she failed.
[ca]"Do you not like it?"

"We could come up with something else."

Coсo just looked at her. Fingers gripping the tabletop, eyes cast down, shoulders
hunched... trying to figure out what went wrong. What she did wrong, how she was to
blame for their failure.

[Red]pathetic[/red]

"Pathetic!" It wasn't her who said it -- someone stood up from the fringes of the
Athletes tables instead. "For goodness sake!" Lyra stood up. "Would you grow a
spine, you three!"
[cb]Bonbon tugged at her sleeve urgently, eyes wide with fear.

"We don't have to be afraid of her anymore. As long as we're together."

Students slowly moved away from her, leaving Lyra and Bon-Bon, pale as death, alone
in a widening circle of empty space.

"Together," wasn't really on the cafeteria menu today. Not when the price was that
high.

Sunset shook her head, ever so slightly, when their eyes met.

They looked at each other for a second more, the girl looking for something in
Sunset's face before she let Lyra's sleeve slip out of her fingers.

Lyra barely noticed it, "You know what? She has no power. And I'm going to prove
it. Since Twilight is not here to be the Princess, then I'm going to run for the
School Body President. And then we're going to get rid of her -- forever!"
[cc]People say she still has a lot of power.
And Lyra says she does not. And she'll run for SBP to prove it.
Dramas laugh.
[cd]establish journal here?
[ce]this might need to be rewritten.
[cf]"What's with the get up."

(Rarity wearing her femme fatale thing from detective episode).

You haven't signed up for theatre, have you? Nolan is an absolute ripe douch--
[cg]"Those aren't Hearts and Hands day cards, are they?"

"Same thing, opposite sign." The smile didn't quite make it to her eyes. "My daily
hate mail."

"That's... awful."

"Please. These kids have thrown a bunch of things at me

and called me petty names. I have survived worse. When someone tries to throw some
battery acid in my face, or gang up and beat me up -- then I'd be concerned.""
Sunset shook her head. "It's petty, childish bullying. Terrible for a child." She
closed the locker. "But I'm not a child. Let them get it out of the system."
[ch]"You hate them, dontcha."

"I don't hate them. They're too.. little. Too little to love or to hate. They're
barely people yet. To hate them is like hating the ashes at your feet. You tolerate
them or you sweep them aside."
[ci].
[cj]"Yeah, that's them. They're dunderheads, but they're actually pretty good at
what they do -- if you keep them from sabotaging themselves, at least." She smiled.
"Like that time [some comic reference].

"No magic in this world. Not for me. And I have some gold from back home, but it's
not much and it's pretty hard to move without either getting robbed or people
asking questions. "
[ck]"What's she like?" Applejack finally asked. "The other Celestia."
[cl]"Well, to be quite honest, there was this rumour," Rarity stammered. "Everyone
thought you're Principal's daughter."

"Celestia? Daughter." Sunset stared at Rarity. "Me?!"

"Well, you have to admit, it was a reasonable assumption." Rarity blushed. "You
being accepted to the school under mysterious circumstances, the way you always
seemed to get away with everything. Even the symbol you were it's not unlike the
one on her door."

"I am not her child. Not this one's, not one from my Equestria. She was many things
to me. My Princess. My liege. My teacher. A mentor, even. at some point. But
nothing more. Never anything more."

"What's she like?" Applejack finally asked. "The other Celestia."

"Same... different. It's hard to explain." Sunset tried to find the words this
world never needed, to explain the difference. "She's the same person, I think.
Somewhere deep within. But you...
[cm]"You must understand how different it is in my world. Here Celestia is the
Principal. Back home --
[cn]"A sleepover." Fleur shook her head. "What are you, twelve?"
Pinkie's floof flattened. "B-but."

"Grow up." she looked at Rarity. "All of you."

[co]Suri giggled from behind Fleur's back.
[cp]330 more words here
[cq]Also might move it a chapter down.
[cr]Definitely move it
[cs]"Did you at least manage to see that Tenderhoof fella who got your panties in a
bunch?"

"My panties are in perfect order, thank you very much." Rarity tried to give AJ a
glare, but she even Tenderhoof's name barely shifted her out of her listlessness.
"But yes," she grinned. "I saw him!"

"An' that's it?"

"There was
[ct]"His work on 'rustic chic' is transformatory. Truly inspiring."
[cu]"Oh, those soirees of Fleur's are just splendid. I meet most interesting
people, and it gets my creative juices flowing so to speak." she shifted in her
seat restlessly. "I have been sketching practically through the night, most
marvellous ideas I have had so far."

"How do you even have the time?" Applejack shook her head. "Sure, the term's barely
started, but there's still schoolwork, an' I don't cotton to it much, but aren't
you in like a dozen Fashion clubs?"

"Don't you have extracurriculars too?" Rainbow squinted at her. "I swear I remember
you talking about something frou frou. Cello or something?"

"Piano, darling." Rarity waved her hands, "And yes, it takes a bit of work to
manage everything, but be rest assured, I can handle anything. Sometimes you have
to go out and carpe diem, as they say."

"Pretty sure nobody says that, Rares," Applejack rolled her eyes.

Rainbow snorted. "But it's cool. You should take Fluttershy with you. She needs to
carp a diem once in a while too."

"Um, oh, n-no thank you."

"Fluttershy, darling, it is an excellent idea! You should model for me!"

"M--mm-mmm-model?"
"I have made all those sketches, even started on some outfits, and with you as my
canvas, why there would be no head left unturned!"
[cv]"Did they mention pigeons? If you're feeding pigeons, you should--"

"They're going to steal stuff, Flutters." Applejack softly intervened. "THat's what
pigeon fly means, among their folk, doesn't it?"

"It's not stealing!" Sunset protested. "It's taking stuff... that isn't technically
ours." she looked down. "Yeah, it's kinda stealing. Metall - mostly lead from those
abandoned buildings in the western part of town, and copper wiring sometimes.
Nobody uses it, and you can get enough to buy a nice veggie burger or get some
pocket change. It's good fun too -- you can see half the city from those roofs. We
used to do it all the time when we were in middle school."

"I used to do it when I was a foal," she added, as the girls digested the news. "We
had a gang -- pegasi mostly, so we grabbed all sorts of stuff. Old copper, wild
lightnings a stray thundercloud..."

She looked back at the carefully blank faces and sighed.

"I ain't saying they're a rotten bunch," Applejack said, "But going out for stealin
aint' a good idea.
[cw]"Sorry, rain check," Sunset reluctantly relayed to Spot. "I got captain."

Spot nodded and tipped his hat as Sunset stepped away.

[cx]Especially here, where everyone's the same.
[cy]Rarity led her by the hand to the beginning of the queue. "Now darling, are you
alright? Did they try to bother you?"
[cz]Two chapters, but Sunset is also doing something.
But she's stalling a lot, missing a lot of beats, kicking things for the future.
[da]Sunset is angry, she's irritable.
She's also self-medicating from the snuffbox
As she tries to keep herself from doing things

She only mellows out when she's with girls

[db]"You should know who your betters are!"

"Well, I know enough to know you aren't" Sunset parried nonchalantly.

"Sunset, please!" Rarity hissed, sotto voce, still straining to keep up her smile.

"Earl Blueblood--" Fleur started, "My--"

"What, that product of vintage incest?" Sunset smirked. "Please. Does he still
faint every time he sees a spider?"
...

"Like you?"

Fleur said nothing, her mouth tightening.

"Well, I'll be some--"

"Fleur, honey," she said with a familiar tone of tired patience. "If nobility was
an STD you'd already caught it a dozen times over."
[dc]doesn't fit. Needs either one more scene here, or move to another chapter.
[dd]The bunny slapped her hand away.

"Feisty little fella," Sunset rubbed her hand. "I don't think he likes me very
much."

"Sorry!" Fluttershy cuddled her bunny. "He's very... protective."

[de]"Fluttershy hates me."

"Darling,"

"I don't mean like you hate plaid, or band from two seasons ago. I do t mean she
doesn't like me. I mean she hates me. She detests, she loathes, me, she wants to
see me burn and scream. She just lies to herself about it, because you children
have been taught that hatred is impolite."

"Whatever on earth gave you that idea?"

"I can see it. I can't not see it."

"Well, you're wrong. I know that you were... not the best person before, but we all
forga--"

"We all? We all Rarity?" Sunset snorted. "Really. You, the popular and pretty one,
AJ with her family and dozen cousins who can twist me into a pretzel without
breaking a sweat, Rainbow Dash, the idol of the sports teams. I was not nice to
you, I lied to you, I manipulated you, I would you all up like chap tin toys and
made you go at each other throats because I had nothing better to do with my time,
but there were limits. There were things I would not - could not touch, lines that
I crossed at a cost. Fluttershy had none of those things. So her I tortured - when
I bothered to notice her at all. For years, with all the ingenuity, with all the
cleverness, with all my many skills and talents.

'You all' forgive me? I wonder if she was the one to make that decision, or if you
just assumed."
"Well, I'll talk to her, and..."

"She has the right to it."

"To what?"

"To hate me. She doesn't owe it to me to forgive me."

"But everyone deserves a second chance."

[df]Might move it to CH14, or GREEN Intermission.
[dg]Maybe more chapters here
[dh]Sunset dug out a beaten-up chessboard, assembling the pieces into a game
position.

"That chess?" Applejack looked at the board. "Are you thinking about joining the
chess club?"

"Egghead" Rainbow Dash grinned. "Though seriously, you should join more clubs.
Sports are awesome, even the nerdy ones."

"I play Zecora." Sunset pondered her next move, trying to figure out her way to
capitalize on the knight that took a very nice poistion in the centre of the board.
"We have a deal: For every question, I answer I get to make a move. And if I win --
I don't have to go there anymore."

"Well, you're off to a good start."

Applejack was right. The position of the white on the board was less than stellar
-- while some black pieces made it into the centre of the board, white was still
waiting to develop anything except for the queen.
[di]"The game has just begun." Sunset tried moving her knight, but, that did look
like much of an improvement. She put the piece back where it started.

"Want me to help? I play with Mac sometimes."

"I don't think that would be sporting." Sunset raised her head from the chess
board. "but we should play sometime. I could use the practice."
[dj]"Fair 'nuff. Just watch that knight over there. You might lose the rook in the
next few moves, if you ain't careful."
[dk]Headaches every morning she went to one of Fleur's soirees. Manic bouts of
inspiration, followed by near-somnolent listlessness. Reddened eyes, sniffling,
that twitch in her left finger as she drummed out an uneven impatient staccato on
the stand. and that look she threw at--

She forced herself to turn away. Rarity asked her not to do that.
[dl]They discuss the Gabby Gums piece.
[dm]ANOTHER ZECORA SESSION
[dn]"I had nightmares. Again," she said. Not quite sure why - there wasn't a
question.

She waited for the counselors nod, before making her move.

"I'm not supposed to have nightmares," she frowned, remembering. "Not any more "

Zecora raised her eyebrow, as she moved her pawn carefully forward.

"It's a gift." Sunset shrugged. "But I had one this night. And most nights.
Since..." that didn't need elaboration.

"You say 'not any more'. Did you have nightmares before?"

"A while." Sunset nodded. "When I was a kid. Not sure if they were nightmares, not
properly. But dreams. Memories. Shakes, sometimes - waking up screaming. That sort
of thing." She made her move. "But I got it fixed. No nightmares since then. No
dreams at all unless I want them." She looked at the position, double-checking her
moves. It did not look great -- her position still was much too vulnerable for her
liking. "I had it sorted. But now it's back."
[do]"How it works it is really not. Trauma isn't something you just sort -- in one
fell swoop it won't be solved." Zecora repositioned her Queen. "It is a process,
not a toll."

"Not for me. Not for the price I've paid." Sunset made another move. "Besides, I
don't have a trauma."
[dp]She hadn't touched the pieces. "No. I don't. Nobody hurt me. Nobody ever can. I
am the one who hurts."

"You are a child. There is no shame in admitting defeat."

[dq]"The obvious problems besides, " Zecora said levelly. "Is that when you're
fighting yourself, the power's the same on both sides."

"And yet, I always win." Sunset made her move. "For me, there is no other way."
[dr]re-pinkie this
[ds]better transition
[dt].
[du]He opened the door for her.

Bolts of fabric, sewing machine, few mannequins half-draped with unfinished pieces,
and, for some reason, an entire fainting couch, that looked like it just escaped
some Prench palace one jump ahead of the fashion police.

Door that could be locked.

Safety.
She stepped through and pulled him in after her.

"Sunset!"

"Oh shush." she made him come after her and closed the door. "You don't want to be
out here, sieged by that mob. At least wait for the bell." She smiled, turning the
lock. "And think what stories you get to tell them."

"Sunset!" He blushed beet-red. "Just... get dressed. Before Vice-Principal get

involved." He sighed, looking around. "At least there's plenty to pick from."

"Yeah. Give me a second." She closed her eyes, and leaned against the wall,
breathing out the tension she did not know she still had. It was such a stupid
thing. Such a human thing to care about it at all... but she'd been human long
enough.

At least, as the boy said, there were dresses. In droves and in dozens, hanging off
every nook and stuffed into cranny of the room. Mostly costumes Rarity was making
for the Theatre and Drama clubs -- period pieces, masks, wigs. A few dresses that
could actually be worn outside of Shake Spear dramas, but...
[dv]"What's up, Dashie?"

..

"I got kicked out."

"Out of what?"

"Everything. I'm not the team captain any more."

[dw]"Because of you" She looked at Sunset, not so much angry as just lost. "The
team said, that if I'm defending you all the time, if I'm not with them -- they
don't want me as a captain any more."
[dx]"How could they do that?" Rainbow asked. "It's... I've always been the captain,
it's like... there should be a rule about it!"

"Lighting Dust has always been running the athletes, Rainbow." Sunset tried to
sound gentle. "You just never noticed, because we all played along."

"What? No! How?"

[dy]"Did you do club budgeting? Equipment requisitions? Gym hall scheduling?"

"The what?" Rainbow Dash furrowed her brows. "I know we got the budget from Student
Council, but I never..." her eyes widened. "Cause Lighing Dust always took care for
it."
"And who resolved all the event problems? Like when Cloudchaser and Flitter ran
that bill on the school trip who sorted it?"

"I totally did!" Rainbow piped up. "Well, I was going to talk to the hotel, and
explain how that stuff wasn't their fault. But then Gilda said she knew someone
who'd take care of it, so I let her. Cause I delegate. Like a good captain."

"Rainbow, she knew _me_"

"Oh." She frowned. "So when Lyra and Bon-Bon stopped fighting with Hoops and
Dumbell over field times?"

"Uh-huh."

"And when Bulk suddenly stopped asking when we get the new weights. And everyone
agreeing we can wait on getting new baseball equipment--"

Rainbow dropped her head. "I'm such an idiot!"

"You're not an--" Sunset sighed. "Come on, Dash. Athletes like you. Love you, even
-- you're the best on any team. They'll turn around in no time. They just don't..."
Sunset tried to soften the blow. "...think of you as being in command. Or taking a
lead on things. Or being in charge of anything outside the field, really. Never
have."

"Well, now that's official." Rainbow's fist clenched. "I've been a phoney captain,
and now I'm nothing. Hope you're happy, Shimmer."
[dz]https://docs.google.com/document/d/18s0VvX4-
FqHEMUkJD5PwnfvVdc9yOG4JY1xiDXfx8x4/edit?usp=sharing
[ea]"Shh." Rarity said. "Listen."

Rainbow shrugged, and pressed her ear to the door. too.

***

"Tiara, listen to me--" Sunset started, clearly not for the first time. "You
shouldn't have published that piece."

"I am the editor of the school paper. " This voice was higher, childish, yet it
sounded haughty, almost dismissive. "It was my prerogative."

"If that your idea of helping me--"

"Oh it wasn't for you." smirk behind those words did not need to be seen to be
felt. "Call it an audition."

"You're changing sides."

"Oh yes. I have all that information you collected. All those secrets we fetched
for you, and you just sit on it, never using it. I wonder how will all the little
secrets I kept for you play out."

"Diamond!"

"All the blackmail, all the dirt -- all of it!"

"You wouldn't dare!"

"Watch me."

"I thought you were on my side!"

"What, you think one evening at the arcade is enough to buy me? I'm not ten, and
I'm not a child!"

"Yes, you are! And you owe me."

"Everything I've owed, I gave back ten times over. I don't need your help, I don't
need your stupid lessons. You lost your nerve, and you're all played out now,
Shimmer. All. Played. Out."

"Is there nothing I can do to change your mind?" Pleading. Soft. So weak, it could
barely be heard.

"Come back to us, Sunset." now the voice became what it was always supposed to be
-- a child's voice, a little lost. "Please. I want my mentor back, the Queen of
CHS, one who knew all the rules, who held all the keys, who reigned with an iron
fist. I want the old Sunset back. Not... this."

Pause dragged, as the girls pressed their ears harder into the plywood of the door.

"I'm sorry." a sigh. "I have to do better. I have to be better."

The girls scattered away from the door, just in time to not get hit by it.
"Is everything alright, darling?"

"Yes, Rarity." Her voice was like a kitten someone just drowned. "It's all
according to plan."

"The plan? What pla--"

"Rarity. Not right now. Please."

They let her pass.

[eb]"I know you need work, so, if you ever need any, you can get a part-time job at
Apple Acres. It ain't much, but it's honest work for honest pay."

"I..." Sunset tried to find a reason. "I'm a city girl. Wouldn't be much use on a
farm."

"Well, you just think about it. We'll need all the help we can get come the Cider
season."

AJ clapped her on the shoulder and left.

[Red]/How dare she.../[/red]

How dare she what? Offer help?

There was nothing wrong with working the farm. It was a good offer, for what it was
worth. And there wasn't even a shadow of a doubt that AJ and her whole family would
be right there, doing the same by her side.

Sure, maybe carrying baskets of apples in the mud wasn't quite as much her speed as
a triple-book accounting shell game or academic cheating, all blissfully done from
a warm and heated room, but hey, it was a job.

Why did it leave her seething mad? Why did her fists clench so hard that nails cut
I into her skin?

She forced herself to breathe. Unclench her fists.

Maybe I will take her up on that offer. Come cider season.

She could use the money after all.

[ec]"Sunset's gonna take this school back. You'll see!"
[ed][red]"Are you going to walk away again?"

She threw a glance at Gilda, but the girl just gave her a level look back, and made
no motion.
[ee]They all looked at her.

Suri with a gleeful, vindictive grin.

Diamond, with desperate hope.
Rarity, silently begging.
Fleur, with that smirk that never quite made it to her lips.
Fluttershy, eyes wide with fear.

They all looked at her.

"You gotta be a bigger person, Sunset," AJ said levelly. "You oughta walk away."

"Yes." Her tongue felt leaden, alien in her mouth. "I just have to..." she looked
at her hands, trying to figure out what she was trying to do. "Just step.." but her
legs didn't move quite right, and then everything turned sideways, and the last
thing she saw was the floor, hitting her traitorously in the face.
[ef]"What happened?"

"Are you alright?"

"Sit down."

The girls, converged on her like a small swarm of anxious birds

[eg]"Charlie. That's such a strange name. Is that your pet?" Fluttershy smiled.
"Can I meet him?"

"You're one to talk," Rainbow Dash snorted. "You called your bunny 'Angel'. What
the heck even is an angel anyway?"

"I don't know, but it sounds nice," Fluttershy petted said bunny." and he likes
that name."

"It's old Minotoan, I think," Sunset eyed a glass of water, and decided not to risk
it. "Means messenger. It really is a weird name for a bunny if you ask me."
[eh]"And Charlie's not a pet - well, it's a pet project -- a motorcycle. We got a
clunker, pretty much from a salvage yard, and we've been trying to get it to run
for a year and a half now.

"Ooh, nice." Rainbow looked at her wistfully. "I've been begging parents to get me
some wheels, for years."

"That's not very romantic." Rarity said. "All that grease and oils and... whatever
other mechanic-y things motorcycles have. Hardly a date."

"It's not a date. We're just friends."

[ei]"Fluttershy should sic her bunny on Fleur!" Rainbow snickered.

MONTY PYTHON REFERENCE HERE

[ej]"You seem different somehow." AJ noted. "Somethin' about you."
[ek]"Me and Flash..." she said. "we talked." like a liar.

"Oooh!" collective exhale made her giggle. "He invited me to visit Charlie
sometime."

"Oh, darling that is marvellous news. You were always such a cute couple."

"Wasn't he hitting on Twilight that whole time she was here? Like two days after
they you up?" Rainbow Dash snorted. "That is such a guy thing. I say dump him like
a bag of bricks. Again."

"Boys are all the same, regardless of species. Two heads, barely enough blood to
use one at a time." Sunset waved dismissively. "Besides, we're not dating. "But
he's a good friend to stick with me after the things I did."
[el]"What did happen? There was gossip, the mystery, the assumptions -- why the
whole school was abuzz. DId he cheat on you? You have to spill!"
[em]"I think someone doth protest too much." Rarity teased.

“Sunset and Sentry, sitting in a tree,” Pinkie sing-sung, rocking on her chair
jovially, “K-I-S-S-- eeep!" She rocked a nudge too far and almost fell, pulling
herself back at the last moment "I'm okay!"
[en]She entered the room, almost feeling the red-raw aura of power around her.

[Posey] turned to meet her, and stepped back. "Hi,Sunset. I--" She said. Here, in
her club, surrounded by her friends, her voice almost didn't tremble.

"Girls," the cloying sweetness in her voice could have choked a bear. "Can you give
us a moment?"

Blood left Poseys face in direct proportion to her friends leaving the room, and by
the time the last of her friends left she was parchment-pale.

"And close the door would you?" She flicked her wrist, a perfect condescending
dismissal, Canterlot-nobility-perfect. "Now, Posey, you have friends. How wonderful
for you."

"S-sunset."

"What do you think you're doing?!"

[eo].
[ep]"We, um," Raritys dainty fingers twisted the plastic spork, "Do you thibk you
deserve it? After all you've done."
[eq]"Why?"
"Because Lyra is going to lose. And better me than that Suri clique."
[er]"Because I'm better"
[es]"We'll hold a budgeting event. A showcase."
[et]"As your..."

[i]Handlers[/i]
[i]Prison Guards[/i]

"Because Twilight asked us to help you."

[eu]Do you at least feel guilty?

"No." It was a lie. But it was one she intended to make true. "I never do."
[ev]Her life was getting on track, definitely. She had her own little group of
friends, she was making amends and was accepted by the school. And in a bit more
than a year she’d be a legal adult, and she'd be able to do real things, in the
wide world. But was she content? Was she happy?
[ew]"Ah, but it doesn't have to be this way. Like this." he snapped his fingers,
right in front of her face, forcing her to blink in surprise.

And in that moment something changed. Something shifted, imperceptibly. And she
just felt...

Balanced. She felt balanced -- lighter and more grounded at the same time. Normal.

"Better?"

"I..." There was something missing in her head. A big white space where she knew...
something was. Some other life, another world. A dream of some sort, memories of
magic, love and loss -- memories of her life that fled when she tried to put her
finger on it.

"You could stay like this if you'd like." Dr Id's voice turned smooth, silken.
"Exactly as you are now. A normal kid."
[ex]He snapped again.

A rush of memories came back.

[ey]"Fine." he made a face. "Here." a snap of his fingers, and it came back,
hitting her like a tsunami.

The fall, hard earth of a newly formed crater scraping her face.
The blinding pain and power coursing through her veins.
The girl, whimpering on the bathroom floor, after she was done explaining how
worthless she was.
Thousands of torments, crimes and horrors she inflicted.
His head on broken wings in dust.
A mare, battered and broken in an ancient pyramid.
The blood on white snow, red mixing with the white.
It hurt.

It hurt so bad.

It hurt to breathe, to think. But still, she forced herself to inhale. In and out.
Not to push those thoughts away, but to accept them.

"Well?" Dr Id looked intently at her. "Do you like it? I can take it away again if
you want."

She didn't say anything. She couldn't -- she didn't have the breath for it, she
didn't have anything but the vast, screaming pain of her memories rushing back in.

"Come on, Sunset. You know you want it."

[small]No[/small]. It was barely a breath.

"What was that?" he leaned closer.

"You cannot have it."

"Are you sure? It's not very nice. Won't make you happy."

"You can't have it. It's mine. It's my anger, my pain, my mistakes." she grabbed
him by his white-labcoat collar. "I will get better. I will be better, but I can't
be better if I don't remember my mistakes, my pain, my crimes. It's mine and you
will not take it."
[ez]bit more here
[fa]She knew how to manipulate, and ingratiate, lie and flatter. But to the rich
snobby kids, she was - as she was much more used to being - a thug. An ugly thing
of force and fear, entirely outside of their comfortable little world of niceness
and rules. A monster that cannot be negotiated with, only appeased.

"Hey, Nolan."

He pursed his lips and looked down at her. "Shimmer." His tone was somewhere beyond
hostile: it was contempt for an animal that had crapped indelicately in the corner.

"Now is that a way to treat your future school president?" She asked as she sat at
his table.

"Is that what you are?"

...
"Your thug is not around this time." but there was a fear in his eyes. "That butch
dyke of yours is playing with Lighitning Dust now -- or so I hear."

...

"Ah. But what about Lightning Dust? Bet you wouldn't like her in charge."
[fb]SUNSET RETURNS THE NOTES TO ZECORA. CLANDESTINELY.
IMPLIES AN APOLOGY
ZECORA ASKS AGAIN WHAT SHE THINKS
SHE DOES NOT LIKE BEING IN CONTROL
SOMEONE MIGHT GET HURT
SHE HAS TO TRUST PEOPLE
SHE IS NOT USED TO IT
ZECORA SAYS NOBODY GETTING HURT ITS SCHOOL. BUT ONE PERSON WAS ALREADY HURTING
SUNSET TOOK A RISK
SUNSET SAYS IT DOESNT MATTER
NOBODY GOT HURT
AND SHE DID NOT LIKE FEELING LIKE SHE DID
ZECORA TWISTS IT TO SHOW SUNSET THAT SHE DID NOT CONSIDER HERSELF.
[fc]It doesn't have to be a full session.
Sunset clandestinely returns the notes. Zecora invites her for tea, they talk. No
chess, no nuthin.
[fd]"And that pain that you could have served. Is that something they would have
deserved?"

...

...

"And what about you? Do you think some sort of pain you are due? There's redemption
through pain, some would believe. Is that not a better life that you could live?"

"No." Sunset said sharply. "It's not. Redemption by suffering, what a load of bunk!
Pain is just that- pain. It teaches nothing, it redeems nothing, it helps no one.
Nobody "deserves" pain, nobody "should" suffer. I for sure don't."

"Besides, nobody got hurt." Sunset crossed her hands defensively. "If all goes
right, nobody will."

The pawn moved up one field, chasing the pinning piece away.

"Nobody?" Zecora asked. "Is that really what you mean?" She considered the board
for a moment. "Knight to f-5, attack on Queen." She moved the piece. "But someone
did get hurt. Someone is already hurting. It is the truth you can't avoid noting."
Zecora picked up a piece. "Uneasy conscience, guilt and fear. That is a pain that's
very near."
"I don't get guilty." Sunset dismissed the notion. "I don't get to be guilty."

"No guilt? Is that the truth you've spilt?"

Sunset sighed.

Her forces suffered another setback, and she needed to think before she'd make
another move.

"No guilt. Never guilt. I take responsibility for what I did. I will fix it -
because the pri... because that's what Twilight wanted, and because that is what I
need to do. But guilt? Guilt is useless. Pain is useless."

"Guilt is like pain, an internal conflict. It's pain on ourselves we inflict. To

deny what we want, to reject what we feel, to work harder, to submit to it's will".

"Right. Guilt, like pain, motivates you to do things, but it's not the right thing.
You just do whatever it takes to make it go away. Even if it resolves nothing, or
makes things worse in the long run."

Zecora looked at her pointedly.

"You think that I--" Sunset raised her hand in protest. "And that's why..." and
lowered it back down. "Huh." She shifted in her seat, hugging her knees. "Huh."
[fe]"I believe that was excellent progress. But now would be the time for us to
egress.

"Wait, you can't just--!"

Zecora, stood up, and opened the door, gesturing for Sunset to go. "Process your
feelings, Sunset. The only way through -- not to deny, but to accept."
[ff]"It's not about punishment. Not even about justice. I'm just doing what needs
to be done."

"You take pleasure from it, don't deny. It's as plain to see as the sun in the
sky."

"Yes." One did not deny the truth -- that habit has been long since beaten out of
her. "I'm not a good person. But that's not why I do it. Not this time, at least."

A twitch of fingers, eyes married a touch,
thoughts. Something Sunset said mad Zecora
[fg].
[fh]ZECORA POINTS OUT THAT SUNSET IS DOING
AND THAT THEY ARE BAD FOR THE STUDENTS SHE
SUNSET IS NOT CONVINCED
a small pause as she arrayed her
make a mental note for later. But now...
THINGS SHE ADMITS ARE WRONG
SAYS SHE'S PROTECTING
BUT IS THINKING ABOUT IT.
[fi]She had all her bases covered. Despite her not-quite admission, Zecora had
nothing. It would be her word against Sunsets -- and her pre-arranged alibi, of
course. And then even if the counselor wanted to escalate this, go to Celestia or
something, she wouldn't dare. The leak of her noted would do too much damage to her
career, not to meтtion her patients.

So why did she feel so bad?

[Red]The silly princess thoughts. We know how to deal with them.[/red]

She breathed, just asshe was taught, forcing the uneasy feeling away...

But was that the right thing to do?

She was, as Zecora said, invalidating her feelings again. Trying to decide what she
should feel...

"No, no, I'm right." She muttered. She was not doing anything that wasn't
necessary, and whatever guilt was there, whatever stupid vestiges of silly
princessy thoughts she had would be dealt with. But... she'd need to think about it
more later."
[fj]"Sunset, you can't smoke here!"

"Hm?" She raised her head. "Oh, don't worry, smoke detectors don't work. I helped
install them."

He looked at her quizzically and sighed. "It's a school, Sunset. You can't smoke
here."

She rolled her eyes, but acquiesced, stubbing out the fag on the underside of the
windowsill.

He sat across her, trying - and failing - not to wince at the acrid smell of the
cheap cigarettes in the air, and looked at her for a while.

She didn't rush him. He was clearly considering. And she liked to watch him think.

"You alright there, Shimmer?" He finally said.

"I'm fine." She lied. "No." She sighed. Promises were made, and could not be
unmade, just because it was easier. "Not really."

"Can I help?"
She shook her head. "I don't think so."

It was comfortable, being silent with him. He didn't wait for her to talk, didn't
expect... anything, really. But being alone was much easier to bear when they were
together, like this.

"...So. Smoke detectors?" he finally broke the silence.

"Flim and Flam." Both the source and an apt description of the result. "The ones in
Chem and Home Ec work, others -- not so much."

He didn't say anything, but it wasn't hard to know what he was thinking.

"I'll fix it." Another mark in the ever-growing tally of her debts.

He nodded. "Want to go see Charlie?"

"I..." there was much to do. And to think. But she wasn't going to do any, so she
might as well do something more fun instead. "Yeah. Let's go.
[fk]"What I want or don't want doesn't matter." Sunset moved her rook up a spot.

"Does it not? Now that is an interesting thought." Zecora made her move. "I wonder
how does that make you feel. Is it good? Is it bad? Does it not make you ill?"

"There are things that need to be done. Rules to the life." [I] as old as the earth
and as true as the sky.[/i] "I'm doing the right thing. And I decide what I feel."

...

"It's for the greater good." she had conviction. She knew she was right. Yet it
still came out more like a question than a statement.

"What do you want from me? A command? A permission? You won't get to play at
submission. You're an adult, you make your own choices. Conscience cannot be downed
out by other's voices."
[fl]"And remember that thing that I told---"

"Yes, yes," Sunset waved her off. "It's a process not a toll."
[fm]"That bitch!" Sunset swore.

"What?"
"She just told Octavia that she's splitting the musical vote."

"You read sign language?" Flash sighed. "why do I even bother asking. Of course you
do -- you probably learned it in a secret Yakistani monastery or something."

"School for disadavtaged children, actually. Three blocks from here -- I spent my
first year on this world pretending to be mute. But that's not the point!"
[fn]"The plebeans." Fleur rolled her eyes. "Throw them something shiny enough, and
you can buy any loyalty."

"Told you, Shimmer, I'd find someone who's got the tits for the fight if you
don't." And you - she pushed Sunset out of the way, "don't"
[fo]She looked down the parapet, where belows crows cawled delighted with the
sudden feast.

She looked down, down the castle walls, that stood on a giant tree. Its roots went
down the mountain towards the valley of Garnath. There was a mist hanging above the
wood. It was a cold, grey, wet-looking thing that clung to the tops of the small,
gnarly trees. The trees were dark, and their branches twisted together like the
fingers of wrestling hands. Dark things darted among them, and from the patterns of
their fight and she knew they were not birds. Bats, probably.

There was something evil present in that great wood, she knew, and then she
recognized it.

It was hers.

"That's how the story ended, isn't it?" Celestia stepped at her side. "They're all
dead."

"No." This wasn't right. It was just a trick of the uneven light and the mists.
Not a valley in Griffonstone - a school, ruined entrance gaping like a toothless
maw. Not the pony princess - a white girl, stood by her side. "Nobody dies. It's a
school, Rarity."

"So it's okay then?" Rarity asked, "What you're doing?"

"I don't want to. But there's no one else."

"And you're the one to do it? Your hooves are covered in blood. And your track
record... well, it speaks for itself, does it not?"

"I will do better now. I will be better." She reached for a fag, and suddenly it
was there. She wished for a flame, and it sprung from the tips of her fingers.
"Better than what?"

"I fancied myself an evil which exists to oppose other evils, once. That I would
fight, until all other, worse evils would be conquered, and on that day I would be
the last one to go, down into the darkness, to be bound with the worst of them. Or
maybe I thought that if I build up a mountain of corpses high enough, she would
finally notice me... silly, isn't it?"

"It's a dream." Rarity said reasonably. "Everything is silly here. Doesn't mean
it's not true."
[fp]"I am none of those things. But I am not what you want me to be either. I am
not a child, not a friend, not a good girl. I am a fighter.

"And I will fight."

"So you have learned nothing."

"Twilight was right. What I did before -- it was wrong. It wasn't power, and it
wasnt' working. Not for me, not for anyone.

"I don't want to do that any more. To destroy, to force myself to do all those
things that I knew, somewhere deep in my heart, to be wrong. I don't want to make
things... less."

She released the puff of smoke, watching it scatter in the wind, and merge with the
mists down below. "I will build things. For once, I want to leave something better
than it was before I came."

It felt nice being vague to a dream. A silly, petty revenge for the vague
prophecies of the dreams past. But it was a dream, and everything was silly here.

"You can't." A shadow whispered from beneath the treas, sharp-toothed and red-
coated. "You cannot leave this road. You have already taken the first step."

"I guess I'll have to make my own."

[fq]NIght.

She didn't want to sleep. The open bed looked more like open grave in this twilight
hour.

Silence.

She lit a candle, looking at the flames, and held the match, waiting for the flames
to reach her fingers.
Night and silence.

"I won't." She looked into the fire, where there was darkness even in the middle of
the flame., "I won't forget."

...

"I'm not crazy." Saying that - here, in night and in silence, to no one but herself
was probably a good sign that it wasn't true. "I know what I need to do."

She pinched the burning match, snuffing out the fire. Only she remained, and the
candle burning in the windowsill.
And the night and the silence.

She lowered herself back into the armchair.

[fr]"Do you see it?" her Princess stepped up to her. "Behind you, down there."

So. She slipped into a dream at some point in her vigil. Still, she stepped to the
parapet and looked where the boy pointed towards.
[fs]“Rather perish than hate and fear, and twice rather perish than make oneself
hated and feared.” Celestia's smile was thin and sad. "Is that it?"

"Is that not what you taught me?"

Celestia -- no it was Rarity some part of her insisted. It was a dream. It didn't
matter.

"But what about them? What if you fail? What if they get hurt?"

She looked down. The mists were empty but the pale moonlight made it seem as if
there were ponies down there. Grey, pink, silver. Cyan and orange, white and
yellow.

"It's a school, Rarity. Nobody is getting hurt. Not really."

"It is a school." Rarity agreed again. "Doesn't mean it's not real. Doesn't mean
their pain isn't real. And it would be your fault if someone gets hurt."

"Someone is already hurt."

[ft]I am none of those things. But I am not what you want me to be either. I am not
a child, not a friend, not a good girl. I am a fighter.

And I will fight.

[fu][I want to build]
"Are you willing to risk it?

"I'm willing to trust them. Sometimes people do surprise you."

[fv]Another stop on her road without end. Another thing she knew needed to be done.
[fw]"Dreams can't hurt you." That's what parents used to say.

But she knew better.

[fx]"That bitch!" Sunset swore.

"What?"

"She just told Octavia that she's splitting the musical vote."

"You read sign language?" Flash sighed. "why do I even bother asking. Of course you
do -- you probably learned it in a secret Yakistani monastery or something."

"School for disadavtaged children, actually. Lower Baltimare, about three train
stations from from here -- I spent my first year on this world pretending to be
mute. But that's not the point!"
[fy]"For us, mortals, all power is thus -- no more than an illusion based on
consent, coercion and trickery."

"There you go, talking about power." Applejack shook her head. "Y'had all the power
in the world after the Fall Formal, and it didn't do nothing."
[fz]"Power matters. Don't matter how honest, or generous or kind you are, unless
you do something."

"Twilight..."

"That's what Twilight did, though. You were Elements of Harmony before her. She
didn't make Rarity more generous, or Fluttershy any kinder. Magic made it all
complete, her Power made it [i]matter[/i]

"We have to do something, and doing anything requires power."

[ga]"Not everything is a fight."

"Everything is a fight! We all fight, one way or the other. Twilight fights mad
beings of pure chaos and ancient sorcerers that want to conquer the world, that
girl from our Bio class fights her fear every day just to come into the class. It
doesn't matter where or when, everything worth having has to be won."
[gb]"How can I trust you if I don't know you?"

"You change faces easier than Rarity changes outfit. You're different with Spot and
his gang, with me, with that Sentry upperclassman, with Fleur or with Nolan. It's
like there's a hundred Sunsets underneath that skin, and I can't trust any if them
cause next moment someone else is gonna be there"
[gc]"I can't darling. It's important! All that networking, all those important
people -- it's my chance to be somebody everyone would know."
[gd]"Just... hear her out, okay?" Flash sighed. "Please."
[ge]"In the end we're all Wondercolts, and we are all students of Catnerlot High.
And that's what I'm asking for -- for this school. All my other pieces are in play,
but I need your help. You are the only ones that can help."

Master words of the humankind, one of her teachers would have called it. It never
failed, but now, perhaps, it worked precisely because she was earnest and really
meant what she said.
[gf]"Hay yeah! Magic girls forever!" Trixie jumped up. "Up top Shimmer."

She rolled her eyes when her high-five was left hanging, but still, she was
undeterred. "I will need fireworks, a few smoke bombs, my favourite lockpick, and
does anyone know where I can get about four gallons of canned soup this time of
night"?
[gg]"Trixie wants, er. Fireworks. And, and a central stage show in the upcoming
showcase. And no history homework!"

Sunset raised an eyebrow.

"Or maybe the Great and Powerful Trrrrixie will hold on to the favor you owe her.
And it will be a very big and importa..."

"You don't have any idea what you want to ask, do you." Sunset giving a magician a
level look.

"Well, erm, no, not as such, no. Trixie is Great, Powerful and very self-
sufficient. But Trixie will come up with something. Besides, Trixie does not like
the snooty miss 'I don't have time for childish magic tricks.' Pretty
MacPerfectson." Trixie made a face. "Trixie doesn't like you much either, Shimmer,
but if you like magic, you cant ve all bad. And now you owe Trixie a favor."

Sunset smiled. It was a weird conversation, but somehow it felt good. "Well, two
favours now."
[gh]Derpy, still holding onto Flash with a deadman's grip, nodded. "W-we," she
gulped. "We'll help. For the school."
[gi]It was not like Fluttershy. Fluttershy was afraid. Derpy... when Sunset stepped
into the room, the life drained out of her. Pale, slacked face, eyes like
pinpricks, she shook -- rocked -- on the spot slightly, and just... went away.
Somewhere far into her own head. Only her hand moved, gripping onto the boy's
forearm so hard her fingers went bone-white..
[gj]"You broke your promise." FIdo said, cracking his giant knuckles. "We dun like
being lied to."

"Yeah, yeah," Rover added stepping forward. "We gots bumped down a year. That's not
noice, innit?"

"And we gots to do more whatsitcalled, remedial classes." Fido added, with a whine.
"Can't go pigeon fly, or go gabbin with mates no more."
"Aight, boyos, we practiced this," Spot said, with a canine grin. "What were we
gonna say to Shimmer here?"

"Cheers, Sunset!"
"Yeah, yeah, thanks, Shimmer."

"Wait, what." Lighting Dust turned, to see smiling boys. "What do you idiots mean."

SPOT SAYS IT'S ALL PRE-ARRANGED

"And dun call me brothers idjits, ken?" Spot gave a glare towards Dust. "They just
needs a little more help."
[gk]"Or..." Sunset pulled the papers. "Or we can go to the Principal."

"Are you nuts?!" Spot jumped off his chair. "Are ye outside of your mind?"

"If I know anything about Celestia -- she will never abandon someone who asks for
help. And I talked to Miss Cheerilee," Sunset continued calmly. "She is willing to
take them to her class. We'll talk to Celestia, they get bumped down a year and get
remedial classes, and this thing becomes nothing but noise."

He hesitated.

"It's your choice." She spread her hands. "You still have my word -- if that's what
you really want, I can make it go away. I'd get them through this, and through this
whole year -- no strings attached. But what about next year? And a year after
that?"

"But..." he sighed and stared at the tabletop. "I can't, Shimmer. I cannot. They're
me brothers. They're like me own flesh and blood. I gotta take care of them."

"You can't protect them forever, Spot." She sighed. "You got them as far as you
could. Now you got to make them walk by on their own."

Spot blanched. "Ma would murder me." He stared at his hands "it would be murder.
Bloody, screaming murder, Shimmer. It'd be my hide hung out all nice out of our
window, wafting gently in the wind."

"Blame it on me?"

"Damn right I will, Shimmer. Ain't no way I'm bringing Ma this news unless I get
someone to share the wrath."
"Hah." That was as good as yes. "that's fair."

...

"Shimmer," he smiled. Not a smirk, or a grin -- a smile. Like a man used to

carrying a heavy load, who suddenly set it aside. "Thanks."
[gl]Nolan sold out for Theatre budget
Sandalwood worked with Sunset all along and is willing to go with it again as long
as he gets to play the hero and sacrifice those who try to dethrone him, like he
sacrificed Fluttershy
Suri is not caring about school at all, and she prepares for her fashion career.
And she uses Coco, Aqua and even Raritys designs for some competition - has, for
years.
So is Lightning Dust, who framed RD for working with Sunset and has been bullying
people left right and center, and hazing athletes.
And Fleur is social bully, who thinks everyone and everything is beneath her and
lashes out against anyone disloyal
[gm]"Did you see the show?"

"Best foal free press expose ever!"

[gn]Diamond pulled herself together. "Everything's set up."
[go]"First rule of life," Sunset declared. "Loss is the greatest teacher. Nothing
but the loss will ever teach you how to adapt and survive. Only the loss tells you
where you are weak, where you are blind. What the rules of the game are, what you
can do, and what you can do to stop it from happening again."

She looked at her students.

"We lost. I lost. Now we learn. We adapt. We do better. We become better."

[gp]"They will come after me." She looked at her students. "And we will let them."

"But--"

"And you will join them."

...

"Untill I give a signal."

[gq]"It's all thanks to you."

"To us?"

"If I did it the way I planned it first I would have taken all the power for
myself. And then -- I don't think I would have let go. There's always another bad
guy to fight, another reason I would need to hold on to it a little longer. Even if
I started with good intentions, and I would end up exactly where I was before --
angry, miserable and alone.
"But you told me to trust others. And I did -- I trusted my students to stick by me
when I was weak. I gave away the easy power, the blackmail, the minions and the
hangers-on. I trusted Trixie and Derpy and Flash. And once I'm done fixing things,
I will trust Lyra to keep doing the right thing.
[gr]"Once Lyra and Sunset graduate, I'm gonna run this school." Diamond said.
"It's good practice."
[gs]REDO.

Lyra says terrible things happened, and Sunset has done better, and she wants
fences mended and could use some help going forward.
[gt]SUNSET CONGRATULATES LYRA ON WINNING
[gu]STUDENTS START ASKING HER A BUNCH OF QUESTIONS
AND BUDGET STUFF
HAVING BEEN SET UP BY DIAMOND AND SILVER.
AND SUNSET'S REMAINING ALLIES
[gv]"They're asking me all those questions. About Showcase, about the play budget,
about rooms, and um..."
[gw]"It's all thanks to you."

"To us?"

"If I did it the way I planned it first I would have taken all the power myself.
And then -- I don't think I would have let go. There's always another bad guy to
fight, another reason I would need to hold on to it a little longer. Even if I
started with good intentions, and I would end up exactly where I was before --
angry, miserable and alone.

"But you told me to trust others. And I did -- I trusted my students to stick by me
when I was weak. I gave away the easy power, the blackmail, the minions and the
hangers-on. I trusted Trixie and Derpy and Flash. And once I'm done fixing things,
I will trust Lyra to keep doing the right thing.
[gx]"I gave away my childhood... and I'm not a kid. But I got a mulligan, and I
think I want to try it out."
[gy]The dream stopped. The students. The ponies. The sounds -- it all stopped in
it's tracks, growing bleak, growing less real.

But still it was there. The presence. The feeling of someone's gaze looking at her.
A shadow, lurking in the corners of her vision.

"Show yourself." her voice sounded feeble, lost in the silence of the dream. Only
an echo of a laughter was her response, rolling through the empty corridors.

"Come on, Sunset."

Sunset followed the sound. It wasn't the halls of the school, not the classrooms.

"You know where I am."

She went down, through the ruined maw of the entrance, into the quad, empty and
eerie in the light of the full moon.

"Closer."

Towards the crater still burned out with the fire of her fall.

"Almost."

Towards the statue, where, in the mirror sheen she saw her.

"There it is."

The blood-red mane, the flame-red skin. The bat-wings and burning emerald of the
iris on the black sclera.
From behind the rainbow-sheen of the mirror, her daemon looked back, grinning with
her sharp toothy grin.

"Now let me out."

[gz]"No." Sunset refused to look away. "I will not. Go away."

The Princess' power waxed, in the dreamy moonlight of the quad, and then waned
back, powerless against this nightmare.
[ha]"You don't have a choice." The daemon-Sunset laughed, stretching her wings, and
her power, like fire around her horn. "You cannot stop me -- without me you have
nothing."

"It is with _my_ anger you get strength."

There was a large sound as if a thousand mirrors broke, and a spider web of cracks
appeared on the wall.

"With borrowed strength, you gain power." The chains broke, a series of links
shattering like a gun salute.

"Through my power, you won." She put her hand - blood-red and dripping on the
mirror from the inside, pushing against the rainbow sheen of the wall.

"Through victory, the chains the other put on me are broken. "The darkness
whispered, coming together. "I am free."

The rainbow wall fell, and the darkness, the red-skinned flame-maned daemon,
stepped into the world.
[hb]"Step aside. This time, I am taking this school, and there is no purple little
princess to stop me."
"No." Sunset did not move. "It's my dream. My world. My rules. You go nowhere
unless I let you."
[hc]"Would it not be easier to let me?" the shadow asked, her voice slithering and
twisting in her ears like a silken snake. "No more pain. No more doubt. With my
power I can protect them -- even from themselves."
[hd]She stops by the classroom and takes a piece of chalk.
[he]"You can't do it without me." the shadow slithered, her voice like silken band
that crawled into her ears, colinig around her brain. "That's why you chose me.
That's why you ..

You opened the door

You summoned the magic
You used the knife
You drank the fire
You followed the road

"You chose it. You chose me."

[hf]"You are all that I needed to be." She lowered her head. "You are what I
needed to survive. I could not have done it without you."

She felt weak. Like a child.

"When I was weak, you made me strong." her chest hurt, as if it were stabbed. "When
I was lost, you've shown me a way."

The shadow smirked, but her grin grew wan when she stepped forward, out of the
circle towards her.

"You held my anger." She stepped again, through the fire. It burned, a blinding,
burning sensation, but she knew how to take pain.

"Stop!" The crimson flames faded, but instead her shadowy wings rose, mighty and
pitch-black, blotting out the sun and shadowing the moon.

"You've carried my guilt." She stepped into the shadow-like wings. Suffocating
darkness felt vast, and alive, alien, predatory things moving there, looking to
latch on to her, to drown her in nightmares and madness, but she knew how to
conquer fear.

"No!" There was panic now in the voice, wild, unbridled. "What are you doing!"

She stepped forward

Where little Sunset stood, alone and scare, blade still deep in her chest.
"You took my pain." She reached out to the child, and pulled her into a hug.

"I'm sorry." She said something someone should've told her a long, long time ago.
"I'm sorry. But we don't have to. Not anymore. I promise."

The body went slack against her, tiny hands hugging her back, and she could feel
the red-hot tears on her cheek. And the nightmare around them went slack,
dissolving with every crying sob, until it was no longer dark.

Not even behind her eyelids.

[hg]needs thought. But essentially, it's about Sunset accepting again both the big
sunset, and the small sunset. Maybe she turns into small sunset?