Of Sunsets and Pocket Pairs

Sunset Shimmer  was a tall girl who, for whatever reason, wore pink boots year round, even during the summer. She also had hair which could  best be described as either red with yellow highlights, or yellow with red highlights (which one it actually was is still under debate since no one has ever had the guts to ask her), and from here on out will simply be referred to as bacon colored. She also had tan skin, green eyes, and wore an orange skirt which had a pink stripe and a beige stripe on it. She also sported a pink shirt with a shimmering sun on it, and like her hair, the sun on her shirt was split into red and yellow, and they were arranged in a fashion similar to that of the yin yang symbol. Finally, and most noteworthy, Sunset sported a black leather jacket with numerous buttons on it, and this jacket was always found on her back no matter how warm it was, because it helped everyone else at her school to know not to mess with her.

However, while at first glance this might seem to be all there was to Sunset Shimmer, besides of course her constant bad attitude and ever present megalomania, in reality this couldn’t be further from the truth. This is because, unbeknownst to nearly everyone else on the planet, Sunset Shimmer was actually a unicorn from another world called Equestria where sentient ponies ruled the land. The ponies in Equestria consisted of three different races, the ground bound earth ponies who were similar to the ponies found on Earth save for their ability to speak fluent English, the flying Pegasi who had wings and managed the weather, and the unicorns, like Sunset herself, who had the ability to cast magic spells. Presiding over all of these ponies was the powerful Princess Celesta, a white alicorn (pony with a unicorn horn and Pegasus wings) with a rainbow colored mane and yellow and orange bicolored sun on her butt.

Princess Celestia ruled Equestria under a fair hoof, although she did have a tendency to try and pretend to drink from cups at parties just so the ponies who refilled drinks would erroneously think she took a sip, refill the drink, and inadvertently overflow the glass causing her to say “gotcha”. Furthermore, in addition to her leading the country and trolling waiters, several years ago Celestia also had another responsibility, being Sunset’s mentor and teaching her the most important lessons she had learned during her time as princess. Indeed, as much as Sunset now hated Celestia, many years ago the two of them used to be very close and even went so far as to consider themselves good friends. However, over time this changed as Sunset, seeing the power Celestia had in the land, began to want such power for herself, and started to pressure Celestia to give it to her. Celestia, sensing that Sunset was becoming corrupted in a desire for power, refused her demand, claiming that even she did not have the ability to grant such a wish to Sunset.

However, while Celestia hoped this would cause Sunset to become discouraged and move on, in reality it had exactly the opposite effect, and served to make Sunset want power even more. So much so in fact, that over time Sunset began to conduct research behind the princess’ back hoping to come across a way to fulfill her desire herself ever more frequently. During her research, Sunset managed to uncover several of the best kept secrets in Equestria, such as the existence of a portal which periodically opened and connected Equestria and another world,  thus allowing the inhabitants of said worlds to travel back and forth at will. In addition, while her research did not give Sunset herself a way tobtain the power she so desired, it did manage to reveal to her somepony who was capable of granting her desire, Princess Celestia. However, before Sunset could discover exactly how Celestia was capable of doing such a thing, Celestia found out what Sunset was up to and confronted her on the issue.

When Celestia did confront her, all the resentment Sunset had for the princess came to a head, and Sunset snapped at her, calling her out for lying to her face and demanding that Celestia make her an alicorn princess immediately. However, this only served to make Celestia realise that Sunset had become too corrupted by a desire for power for her to continue teaching, and as such the princess was forced to dismiss her as her student, though it pained her greatly to do so. Sunset, enraged at Celestia for dismissing her, decided that she no longer wanted to live in a land where the princess ruled, and used the knowledge she had gained of the portal mentioned before to find the portal and use it to leave Equestria. However, before she left, she swore revenge on Princess Celestia for not giving her the power she felt was rightfully hers, and vowed that she would return to Equestria and take it from Celestia by force the next time the portal opened.

Since that time, Sunset had enrolled herself in Canterlot high school under the guise of a student, and quickly used her charisma, intelligence, and ingenuity to gain nearly complete control over the social scene in the school. Of course, the other students did not take this lying down, and indeed, during Sunset’s freshman year one bold girl had taken it upon herself to run against Sunset for Canterlot’s equivalent of the prom, the spring fling, in an attempt to put Sunset’ power over the school in check. However, as that girl had found out the hard way, Sunset Shimmer had ways of making sure she stayed on top, and made sure to make her life miserable for trying to oppose her, so much so that even now she had yet to fully recover from what Sunset did to her. As a result, since then no one had ever dared to so much as lift a finger against her, and Sunset had consequently enjoyed two full years of being the top dog of Canterlot high and being able to say anything to anyone at any time. Anyone that is of course, except the school’s faculty, who she put on the nicest of nice faces for, thus fooling them into thinking she was the ideal student so they never took any action against the all out dictatorship over the school she had created. As a result, even now, at the beginning of Sunset’s senior year, she still had nearly all of the faculty in the school convinced that she would not so much as hurt a fly, an illusion which was aided by the fact that none of the students had the cahones to tell the faculty what Sunset was doing, for fear she would do to them what she had done against the girl who tried to run against her during her freshman year.

Yet, despite seemingly having the perfect life, at least from an outsider’s perspective, Sunset still had a MAJOR problem to deal with, and that was the fact that she still had no idea about how to go about exacting her revenge on Princess Celestia yet. Making matters worse, time was running out as the portal connecting Equestria and Earth would reopen again in less than three months, and if Sunset didn’t have a plan by then, she would be forced to wait three years before she had another chance to return to Equestria. Therefore, Sunset needed a plan and she needed it immediately, and it is in this prediciment in which we find Sunset in the beginning of our story.