Chapters A tumble down memory lane
It was a bright, sunny day in the city of Canterlot. In the park, children played and joggers jogged while listening to their tunes and a group of six girls were setting up a picnic at one of the tables.
Fluttershy was helping Rarity and Pinkie Pie set the table and put out the food while Applejack and Rainbow Dash were competing to see who could do the most push ups. Meanwhile, the newest addition to the group, Sunset Shimmer, shyly stood apart from the rest of them and quietly observed what they were doing. The former bully and she-demon was unsure of what she should be doing. While these girls were technically her probation officers and were supposed help her learn the magic of friendship, there was still some distance between her and the five of them. After all, she had spent the previous two years scheming and driving their friendship apart which cultivated with them blasting her with a magical rainbow friendship laser at the fall formal. How would you treat someone who turned into a demon and tried to take over the world? As Sunset pondered this, she was interrupted by a cheery voice:
"What ch'ya thinking about Sunset Shimmer?" asked Pinkie who had managed to sneak up on Sunset while she was deep in thought. Sunset jumped in surprise but relaxed a little when she saw who it was.
"Just.. wondering when Twilight's going to get here." Twilight Sparkle was, ironically, the one Sunset felt most comfortable with.
"She texted me earlier." Applejack approached them with a grumpy looking Rainbow Dash. "She got caught up with something so she's gonna be a little late."
"Oh" was all Sunset said with disappointment. The other girls gave each other worried looks. They were aware of the distance between Sunset and themselves and that Sunset shared a history with Twilight, though they didn't know the details. Could that be the reason Sunset was slightly more relaxed with Twilight around? Rainbow decided to hit the nail on the head.
"Look Sunset, during fall formal week, we may have sorta..." Rainbow paused as she tried to find the right words for it, ""Found" a picture of you and Twilight as kids." Sunsets eyes widened at this which prompted Rainbow to continue, "When we asked Twilight about it, she said you to used to be friends as kids, and that you knew the Principals, but didn't want to tell us what happened." Rainbow stared directly into Sunset's eyes as she made her request, "I don't suppose you might want to tell us what happened." After catching a look from Fluttershy she softened her eyes, "That is, if you don't mind. It's totally cool if you don't want to talk about it right now." Sunset pondered these words for a few moments bore letting out a deep sigh.
"No, I thinks it's time you girls knew what happened between Twilight and me," She took and a deep breath and averted her eyes,"...and how I managed to drive away the only friend I ever had." They all sat down at the picnic table and leaned in towards Sunset, listening intently as she began her tale.
"Well, it all started about ten years ago, at magic school tryouts."
First meetings (backstory and exposition)
Believe it or not, there was a time when I wasn't a completely horrible human being and was just an innocent little kid. You see, the Canterlot School for Gifted Mages was one of the top magic schools in the whole country, maybe even the whole world. While they don't require a tuition fee, top ones like these only accepted the brightest and most powerful mages. To get into this school, you needed to pass two tests. The written exam to test you intelligence which I aced of course. Then, the spell casting exam which was supposed to test your magical potential. After days spent practicing, the day of the exam arrived.
A six year old Sunset Shimmer nervously in a classroom in one of the towers, in from of the panel of judges who were going to decide her future. She had just been asked to create a ball of light. A rather simple spell compared to what she had expected, but did little to sooth her rattle nerves. She gulped and folded her hands together as though and prayer and concentrated her magic.
A spark of light from her hands began to glow and sunset began to pull them apart. The ball soon took form and began to grow as Sunset moved her hands apart and poured magic into it. The professors nodded and began writing on their clipboards. Sunset smiled and began to think of something that would impress them for sure. She began to move her hands furthered her hands and began pouring even more magic in, making the ball continue to grow in size and powered. The professor's oh'd and nodded towards each other. Sunset beamed with pride and prepared for the grand finale.
She contracted the ball in, then let it implode, creating a loud boom and a ring of vibrant colors burst out of the room and escaped the tower. The professors were amazed and even applauded a little. Sunset bowed, still grinning with enthusiasm, she was going to get in for sure now! All seemed to going great until...
BOOM!
The sound of another explosion followed by lightning. The professors and Sunset raced to the windows and what they saw stunned them. In another nearby tower, magical lighting seemed to be pouring out of the windows. Then suddenly, what appeared to be a dragon head burst through the roof!
"What in the world is going on!?"
"It looks like a magic surge!"
Wait, what's a magic surge?
It's what happens when a mage looses control of their magic, Rainbow.
Oh, thanks Sunset.
So anyway...
The professors continued to panic amongst themselves as Sunset continued to be mesmerized by the spectacle in front of her. She had never seen so much raw magic before! She was so focused on it what she almost didn't hear the door slam open.
"What just happened!?"
They all turned to see a new figure standing at the door way. She was dressed casually in a purple shirt and jeans in contrast to the professors' more traditional wizardly robes and Sunset's fancy (though uncomfortable) dress her mother had picked out for today. One of the professors spoke up.
"Lady Luna! Don't you see.." she stammered, pointing out the window to the dragon head. Luna raised a hand, silencing them.
Hold up again. "Lady" Luna?
Magical society thing, I'll explain later.
"I know, my sister has got that covered. I came to discover the cause of the explosion from this room." she explained. Sure enough they heard something and everyone turned back to the windows to see the dragon head disappear from view and the lightning disappear. They looked back to Luna but before any of the professors could speak up, Sunset walked forward with a sincere apologetic expression of her cute little face.
"I'm sorry Lady Luna. I just wanted to show off for the professors so I'd make it into this school. My parents really really want me to get into this school." Sunset lowered her eyes to the floor? Had she been responsible for that spectacle a moment ago? Was she about to be thrown out for almost destroying the school? Would she also be blacklisted from every other magic after this? What would her parent's say? They had already pressured her hard to get into this school, and they would probably call her a disgrace to the family name when word got out about the incident.
Sunset sneaked a glance to Luna. She didn't look angry or disappointed but rather...surprised? "Really?" She asked curiously. She began to examine Sunset. "You were the cause of the first explosion?" Sunset felt herself stiffen under the woman's intense gaze. Finally one of the professors chimed in.
"Indeed. We only asked Ms. Shimmer here to create a simple ball of light, but she managed to create something akin to a sonic rainboom!"
Luna's gazed turned stern again as she processed the information. Then she did something, something unexpected. She smiled. She walked to Sunset and knelt down to her eye level. "That was quite impressive, especially for one as young as yourself. What is your name, young one?" she asked kindly. Sunset gulped and replied nervously,
"S-Sunset Shimmer! Miss Lady Luna Ma'am!" Luna chuckled a little at the response, "Just 'Luna' please and I do believe you just earned yourself a spot at this school for next semester. Isn't that right?" She looked towards the professors who all nodded rapidly in agreement. Luna picked herself off the floor.
"Now, I must be off to see what Celestia had to deal with, but I look forward to meeting you again, Sunset Shimmer, and seeing how much you've learned. Good day everyone." With that Luna left the room.
For a few moments there was silence as everyone contemplated on what just happened, Sunset in particular. Slowly Sunset began to smile and hopped in into the air, yelling at the top of her little lungs:
"YES! "
Awww!
Yeah Yeah, I was cute back then. But it felt like the greatest day in my life. I had gotten into one of the best magic schools and at only the age of six!
Is that how you first met Celestia and Luna? But where does Twilight come into this?
Well Rarity, that's the funny part. Turns out she had her exam scheduled that day too, in a tower just across from the one mine was in... *GASP* No way!
Yes way everyone. Twilight was that powerful, even as a kid. She told me that not me later that not only had she hatched a dragon egg and made the baby grow to enormous size, she also turned her parents into plants! Apparently she was struggling with her exam when my explosion awakened her 'dormant magic' so to speak. It was no surprise she got it in, and that wasn't even the best part.
Whaddya mean?
You see Applejack, Celestia and Luna were visiting some colleagues at their old school when they saw the explosions. They split up to cover more ground. While Luna checked on me, Celestia helped calm Twilight's magic down and undo the damage.
Wow
It gets better. Apparently Celestia and Luna talked to the heads of the school and they were concerned that not even they could handle two powerful six year olds on their own, so Celestia and Luna offered to help them by becoming our personal tutors! Anyway, when we weren't in out standard classes, they were allowed time off from their own jobs at CHS to help us further develop our magic while sharing their own knowledge of it.
Anyway, that's a little further down the line. It didn't actually begin until the first day of magic school, and that's when I met the greatest friend I ever had.
Oh! Oh! Was it Twilight?
*Sigh*..yes Pinkie. That's when I met Twilight Sparkle.
Sunset, clad in her new blue and red school uniform, walked around the halls of her new school, she has just finished moving into her dorm and had some time before classes began...
Wait! Wait! Hold up! Dorm? I thought you lived in Canterlot?
I do and did even back then Rainbow. All magic schools have dorms for students who travelled from far away to attend, couldn't live at home, or wanted focus on their studies in independence.
But darling, you were only just six years old!. Isn't that a bit young to be living in a dorm, even for magic school? What were your parents thinking?
My parents...wanted me to develop an early sense of independence. Never-mind that! So anyway, it was my first day at magic school...
Sunset wandered around the centuries old school full of artifacts and portraits of famous mages who studied there, including the school's founder: Starswirl the Bearded. Sunset continued to wander around, her six year old mind trying to taking in everything around her when she heard a *thud* coming from the next hall. Sunset leaned her head around the corner and saw two girls just a few years older than herself in front a girl Sunset's age sprawled on the floor. From the tears in the younger girl's eyes and the older girl's laughs, it wasn't too hard to figure out what happened.
"Aww look, the poor baby's crying." One of the older girls said in a mocking voice and the younger girl struggled to hold in her tears.
"P-Please leave me alone." She whimpered, struggling to gather her scattered books.
"Oh what was that? Guess I have trouble understanding freaks like you!" Older girl #2 said shortly before she kicked the stack of books and eliciting more tears from the younger girl.
Sunset had had enough and marched up to the laughing girls and yelled at the top of her lungs, "LEAVER HER ALONE!" Startled both girls turned around to see a fuming Sunset.
"What's your problem shrimp?" Older girl #1 asked, annoyed at the interruption.
"My 'problem' is that your picking on a defenseless girl who's even younger than you!" This caused older girl #1 to roll her eyes.
"Well she wouldn't be so 'defenseless' is she used her magic. After all this is a school for 'gifted mages' right? So why doesn't she just use her magic?"
"Maybe she just doesn't want to make you look bad!" Sunset boasted. "Now you leave her alone or else!"
"'Or else' what? " Older girl #2 asked Sunset condescendingly. Sunset smirked and used her magic to cast the illusion of a giant, growling bear standing upright behind her. The older girls' eyes widened and they shrieked and rushed down the hall away from the fake bear. As soon as they were out of sigh, Sunset dropped the illusion and focused her attention to the girl still on the floor. She looked , her violet eyes wide with amazement at Sunset. Sunset helped the girl to her feet and decided to introduce herself.
"Hi, my name's Sunset Shimmer. What's yours?" The other girl quickly realized Sunset was speaking to her and shyly introduced herself.
"I-I'm Twilight. Twilight S-SParkle. This is my first day." Sunset widened her eyes as she realized who she was talking to. "You're Twilight Sparkle?! The one who caused a dragon egg to hatch and grow?" Twilight nodded nervously. Sunset became excited, "We're going to be tutored together! Did they tell you that?" Twilight eyes widened with recognition and nodded again, a small smile forming on her face.
"This is so cool, we are going to have so much fun! By the way what king of dragon did you hatch? Soitheamh or fiadhaich ?" Sunset asked, her eyes sparkling with excitement.
"Soitheamh . Her name's Morrigan. She's in the dragon stables if you wanna see before class starts." Twilight said, her smile growing. Sunset nodded repeatedly and dragged Twilight towards the stables.
From that day on, a beautiful friendship grew between Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer. They studied together, hung out at Twilight's house and Sunset's dorm, they even had sleepovers. Twilight's family even became something of a surrogate family for Sunset, and they treated her as if they were her own daughter. They enjoyed studying under Celestia and Luna too, with all four becoming quite close. Sunset helped Twilight from bullies and Twilight gave Sunset some stability when Sunset's own paren't weren't around. Because of their focus on studying, they were isolated from the other students and only had each other, but that's all they needed. Twilight held Sunset's hand as they buried Sunset's rat familiar when they were ten, and Sunset hugged Twilight while she cried when her beloved grandmother passed away when they were twelve. Overall, they were the good years. But they all came to an abrupt end when they were thirteen; just about to start high school...
After a few years of magic school, Twilight and Sunset reached the point where most junior magic students decided whether to continue their magical studies there, or try their luck while interacting with regular humans at a regular high school. Celestia and Luna began to worry, lately Sunset had been getting reckless. Asking about dangerous spells and practicing spells that were dangerous even for older mages, and frankly becoming more rude and insulting to her teachers and fellow students. She became isolated from everyone except Twilight. While they began to have doubts for Sunset, they could only hope Twilight wouldn't follow her best friend down the same dark path.
One day while Twilight was studying in the library when she heard something from the forbidden section. She glanced at the librarian, who was sound asleep. Deciding to put aside her desire to follow the rules and investigate, she quietly walked up to the door of the forbidden section. Strangely, the door was slightly ajar. Twilight knew that only certified mages were allowed in there as it contained books and scrolls on dark magic. Pushing the door a little further open, Twilight peeked inside and was stunned at what she saw.
There, surrounded by a pile of open books was Sunset, studying one of the books intensely.
"Sunset?" This caused said girl to look up in alarm, though she calmed down when she saw it was only Twilight. "Oh, hey Twilight."
"What are you doing?! You know we're not allowed in there. Now put those books back and let's go." Sunset however just shook her head defiantly.
"No! It's not fair that they get to hide all this magic from us! We deserve to learn it."
"But Celestia and Luna said we weren't ready for that kind of stuff. Besides, they said the stuff in those books could really hurt people! I don't want to hurt people!"
"But we are ready! Can't you see how they're holding us back? We could be great! There so much knowledge and power here just for the taking!" Twilight was so conflicted, she didn't like arguing with her best friend, but she also knew the dangers of what she was doing.
"I-I gotta go..." Twilight quickly left the library, feeling Sunset's gaze pierce her back as she left.
Eventually Sunset just rolled her eyes and went back to work. Figures Twilight would be too much of a rule stickler to realize her potential. But there was no way she could of predicted what would happen later.
While she was going through another book, the doors slammed open, making her jump with surprise. Standing there, were Celestia and Luna along the headmistress of the school and two guards.
"Sunset Shimmer! Just WHAT in the world do you think your doing?!" Celestia demanded angrily.
"What are YOU dong?! Denying me the knowledge to become great? Keeping all this power to yourselves? You know I'm ready! I deserve to be taught this!" Sunset retorted, her eyes burning with anger.
"You could have been great. I though we saw compassion compassion and sincerity in you, but it was nothing but ambition and selfishness. We have tried to tach you what you need to know, but you have constantly turned away from it. Knowledge and power must be earned ." Luna said sternly and nodded toward the headmistress. The headmistress in turn gestured toward the guards and each grabbed hold of Sunset's arms and began to drag her away. As they were leaving the library, Sunset saw a very worried looking Twilight trying to hide behind one of the doors. This caused Sunset to unleash her fury.
"YOU?! You told on me?!" Sunset screamed, feeling betrayed and started fighting against the guards. "I'm sorry Sunset! But you could've been hurt and I didn't know what else to do!" Twilight pleaded, trying to reason with her. But Sunset just continued to glare daggers at her and as the guards dragged her away.
"You'll regret this Twilight Sparkle! You'll see! As soon as I have the power I'm coming for YOU first!" Sunset's threats faded as she and guards lest.
Twilight continued to stand there, tears running down her cheeks as she realized she had lost the only friend she ever had. She continued to cry long after Celestia and Luna came out to comfort her.
Sunset was unceremoniously kicked out of magic school and sentenced to juvenile hall for the next few months to deal with her "issues".
Twilight and Sunset would not meet again until a few years later.
Author's Note
Some of the dialogue was taken/influenced by the 2013 annual comic: The Fall of Sunset Shimmer, just in case you recognized it.
Sunset finished her story and looked to see five sympathetic faces staring back at her. The worst case was Pinkie who was struggling to contain her tears when she rushed up to Sunset and gave her a hug so forceful it lifted her out of her seat.
"Oh your poor things! You've been through so much together and to suddenly lose the best friend you ever had!" Pinkie sniffed, hugging Sunset even tighter and making it hard to breath. Thankfully Applejack came to her rescue.
"Alright alright. It's sad, but popping Sunset like a grape ain't gonna make things right." Pinkie realized what AJ meant and set Sunset back down, sniffling a quick 'sorry'.
"Thanks Pinkie, but it still doesn't change the fact that I drove everyone I cared about away while in my stupid quest for power." Sunset looked down at the table, wishing with all her might that she could change what she had done. She wanted to go back in time and tell younger Twilight that she was sorry and encourage her not to give up on friendship. Her brooding was interrupted when Rarity placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"Darling we've all done things we're not proud of, and while you may have played a hand in it, we all ended up ruining our friendships ourselves." She looked to the others and they all nodded guiltily in agreement. "But while we can't change what happened in the past, what matters is that we strive to fix our mistakes and become better people out of it, just like your doing." Rarity gave a soft smile and squeezed Sunset's shoulder comfortingly, causing Sunset to smile back at her.
"Thanks Rarity, and to all of you for giving me the chance to make up for everything I've done." Fluttershy came up and gave Sunset a comforting hug, which she quickly returned. After that her smile quickly faded.
"I just hope Twilight will be able to forgive me one day..."
"I think she already has."
Sunset to where Fluttershy was gesturing and saw Twilight running up to them with Spike on her heals.
"Sorry I'm late girls! I got caught up finishing a project that took longer than I thought it would. So anyway, what did I miss?" Twilight asked eagerly. Sunset then answered with a smile on her face.
"Nothing at all."
"Good! Now can we eat? I'm starving and the food smells great!" Spike popped in, sniffing and wagging his tail in excitement. Twilight and the girls just giggled and set down to a wonderful picnic, with hopes that there would many more of these to come.
Author's Note
And now we've reached the end of the exposition train! I hope you enjoyed it! Feel free to comment if you want me to write more stories about this world.