Sunset Shimmer's chest expanded and contracted with a deep, well rested sigh of contentment. She opened her eyes and surmised by the way the sun light bled into her bedroom between the cracks of her blinds that she had awoken much later than she was accustomed to.
For the first time in a long time she had allowed herself to sleep in, and the smooth skin below her eyes thanked her for it. A cursory glance of her alarm clock had informed her that it was ten fifteen in the morning - if one could consider that to be 'morning.'
Her thick quilt tumbled down around her lap when she sat up and stretched, revealing the cute little pajama shorts and CHS shirt that was her sleepwear. She lazily smiled down at her attire and thought, To get dressed, or not to get dressed?
A dismissive shrug and an audible "Meh" was the reply to her own inquiry. Pajamas would be the dress code for today, for this would be a day of leisure; today would be her long-needed 'me' day: No school, no work, no plans, no she-demons from another dimension trying to take over her world; just her, herself, and she.
Throwing off her quilt and swinging her bare, copper-toned legs over the side of her bed, she was ready to begin her day of doing nothing.
She paid a quick visit to the bathroom, then made a brief trip to her refrigerator to retrieve an energy drink and a plate of leftover fish and chips. With her breakfast in hand, she entered the living room of her one bedroom apartment.
The plastic spine of her thickly-padded computer chair screamed as she eased her one hundred ten pound self into it. The piece of crap was only recently purchased, and it was advertised on Craigslist to be able to support the weight of a three hundred pound man easily.
Craigslist, she thought bitterly as she booted up her PC, her chair's protestations tempting her to take the poor thing out to the most remote section of Sweet Apple Acres and putting it out of its misery with Applejack's shotgun.
The cursor flickered sporadically across the white bar of the Windows boot up screen as she rapidly tapped her password into the keyboard. She then pecked at the 'enter' button, and her wallpaper of her and her friends balancing on top of each other to form a human pyramid in front of her school statue lit her monitor, with Pinkie Pie at the top triumphantly holding a cupcake in the air.
It was a good thing Photo Finish had taken that picture when she did, for it was Pinkie Pie's sudden victory pose that had caused them to lose their balance immediately after, resulting in Sunset and her party collapsing to the lawn in a writhing pile of expletives and thrashing limbs.
It was but one of many of her 'Oh, Pinkie!' memories that made Sunset Shimmer smile.
The Steam update prompt popped up almost immediately. After clicking on it, Sunset could practically feel the inner confines of her machine accepting Lord Gaben's love and devotion to improve her user experience.
Watching the emerald blocks as they quickly danced across the white update bar, she dipped one of the cold battered pieces of fish into the small plastic container of tarter sauce and took a bite.
She never could suffer the soggy texture of fried food that had been reheated in the microwave. Besides, it tasted almost as good cold as it did when it was fresh. If there was one thing Sunset loved about being a human, it was the cuisine her omnivorous constitution allowed her to enjoy.
She had finished the second piece of fish on her plate, and was savoring the lingering flavor of grease on her finger tips when the update had finally finished installing. With her gut full of battered Alaskan Pollock and her cheeks bulging with a mouth full of fries, she perused her eclectic library of games whilst she chewed.
Her eyes widened when she noticed Doom in her library. Now, when did she purchase that?
A quick review of the Steam update synopses informed her that Doom would be free for the weekend, followed my a five word message at the bottom scrawled in capital letters dripping with pixelated gore: 'NOW, GO RIP AND TEAR!'
Sunset Shimmer, her eyes glinting with surprise, did thank the Gaben with a whisper of acknowledgment. Truly, this Lord Gaben was a benevolent deity masquerading in a flabby mortal coil.
She set the game to install as she surfed the web in search for some wholesome entertainment. That was when she discovered a thread on the internet called /b/.
Within two minutes she had realized it would be prudent to have a barf bucket near her if she dared to venture further.
Within four minutes her previous hypothesis had proven to be correct.
Within six minutes the shock had warn off, and she realized she would never be able to wear white at her wedding with a clear conscience.
Within eight minutes the shock had returned.
Dawn of the tenth minute: She found herself struggling in vain to force back a hysterical fit of laughter after stumbling upon an obscenely offensive story that had been written in green text.
It was no sooner than when she had realized she was going to hell when Steam had informed her that Doom had finished installing in her library. "Oh, thank Celestia!" she exclaimed, smashing the x button at the top corner of her browser - but not before guiltily saving the page.
After adjusting her graphical settings so that she could play at ultra-high, attributing her ability to do so to the high performance graphics card she had recently purchased, (Shop Smart. Shop S-Mart) she chose her difficulty setting.
"They are rage," the opening dialogue of the game had informed her, the text appearing before a backdrop of glowing red pentagrams. "They are brutal, without mercy. But you... You will be worse. Rip and tear, until it is done!"
And rip and tear she did. In her crusade of carnage, the agonized screams of demons was a symphony, and her ever-growing arsenal of weaponry were her instruments. She was that cute weather girl on TV late at night, forecasting that the burning hells would experience a rain of bullets with a slight chance of chainsaw.
Equipped with her berserker powerup, Sunset was in the middle of, quite literally, ripping and tearing her way through a cluster Imps and Possessed when the Steam Messenger distracted her.
FLASH! Uhhhoooh: Yo ; )
FLASH! Uhhhoooh: wut up gurl <3
The message had provided just enough of a distraction for her would-be victims to turn the tide of the battle. Sunset looked up just in time to see the protruding tusk of a Pinky Demon impale the Doom Slayer. A muttered curse escaped between her lips when she clicked continue and realized she would have to begin the level all over again.
Irritated but undaunted, she embarked once again through the punishing hellscape.
FLASH! Uhhhoooh: wut u up to?
FLASH! Uhhhoooh: u know its saturday
FLASH! Uhhhoooh: got any plans?
FLASH! Uhhhoooh[i/]: want som company?
FLASH! Uhhhoooh[i/]: parents are home, but we can hang out at yer place if that's cool : )
Sunset Shimmer attempted to ignore Flash Sentry's barrage of messages as she proceeded to punish the group of pesky Pinky Demons that had previously penetrated her. They were dangerous up close, so her weapon of choice was the Gauss Cannon. Keeping her distance, she rained her beams of focused plasma energy down upon them, systematically taking them down one at a--
FLASH! Uhhhoooh: btw
FLASH! Uhhhoooh: wrote a new song
FLASH! Uhhhoooh: it called 'Reach Out For The Sunset'
FLASH! Uhhhoooh: its about a girl I like
FLASH! Uhhhoooh: betcha can't guess who she is ; )
FLASH! Uhhhoooh: i can bring my guitar with me when I come over
FLASH! Uhhhoooh: u kno
FLASH! Uhhhoooh: maybe play it for you?
The messages continued to flood the screen as the demons managed to close the gap between them and her.
"Crap, crap, crap!"
In her desperation she whipped out her chainsaw and fell the first two Pinkies. One managed to break through the firing line she had set up and checked her against a wall. A Revenant then teleported in from seemingly out of nowhere and finished her off with a barrage of rockets.
The pinging sound of the Steam messenger persisted like an obnoxious rhythm as Flash continued to spam her with his advances.
Sunset Shimmer burried her face in her hands and let out a frustrated grunt.
FLASH! Uhhhoooh: sunset
FLASH! Uhhhoooh: sunset?
FLASH! Uhhhoooh: yo sunset
FLASH! Uhhhoooh: hey
FLASH! Uhhhoooh: listen
FLASH! Uhhhoooh: sunset
FLASH! Uhhhoooh: sunset?
FLASH! Uhhhoooh: yo sunset
FLASH! Uhhhoooh: you there?
FLASH! Uhhhoooh: wher u at?
FLASH! Uhhhoooh: yo sunset
FLASH! Uhhhoooh: sunset?
Sunset Shimmer plummeted to her death twice, got blasted to jiblets by the Revenant, got torn to pieces by a charging Hell Knight, was incinerated by a Cacodemon, then ripped to shreds by a horde of Possessed before she finally snapped.
Sunstroked: WHAT
Scowling at her monitor, Sunset Shimmer crossed her arms over her chest, tapping her shoulder impatiently with her index finger as she awaited his reply.
FLASH! Uhhhoooh: .....
FLASH! Uhhhoooh: hi : )
Sunset Shimmer's eye twitched. She then sent the persistent pest's profile screaming to the black abyss of her block list with the force of a thousand flaming banhammers.
A few sighs and some vigorous temple rubs later she tried to return to her game, but every attempt she made to reach a checkpoint proved to be more difficult than the last.
Her stomach was rumbling, and when she looked at her clock she realized she had been playing for four hours.
Her piece-of-crap chair creaked in protest as she slouched back. As much as she liked the game, she was starting to get burned out on it. And she was hungry.
She twisted around in her seat and turned her head to eye the ancient refrigerator in her tiny nook of a kitchen. The stainless steel monolith was yet another Craigslist purchase she had made. The old girl was an eyesore, but she was sturdily built - though the lights in her apartment dimmed every time the compressor kicked on, and the freezer unit made the freakiest nightmare fuel creaking sounds at night.
Sunset had already finished off what was left of the fish and chips, she was out of TV dinners and instant ramen, and she sure as hell didn't feel like cooking. That left her with only one option.
"Yeah, I would like to place an order for delivery, please. One medium Hawaiian."
"Sure, whatever. You want something to drink with that?" replied the girl on the other end of the phone, her voice monotone and apathetic.
Sunset paused upon realizing the voice sounded familiar. She tried to place it with a face, but, for the life of her she couldn't.
"Heellloooo~" came the voice, impatiently. "I'm gonna hang up, now."
"No, wait!" Sunset said. "Uhm... Yeah, no drink. I'm good."
"Alright, give me a minute." The girl went silent as what sounded like typing could be heard on the other side of the line. "It's going to be eighteen fifty.... plus tip."
"Eighteen fifty?" echoed Sunset in dismay. "As in dollars?"
"No, Pesos."
"Haha!" Sunset laughed humorlessly. "No, but seriously, eighteen fifty for one medium pizza?"
"If you don't want it, just say so." The voice then muttered almost inaudibly, "Saves me a trip."
"No, no, it's fine," Sunset conceded. "When will it arrive?"
"When I get there." And then the delivery girl hung up. Sunset glowered down at her phone as the 'call end' text appeared on the screen.
The time waiting for her pizza was spent playing the newest addition to her library. A dulcet swing jazz track straight out of the 1930s played as Sunset finger gunned her way through a plethora of vibrantly colored baddies. Her mission? To literally give the devil his due.
She died. She died a lot. But she didn't care. The game was hard, but its imagery was so charming, and the overall solid gameplay was so fun, the next forty five minutes flew by.
It was no sooner than when she had struck the finishing blow on a particularly difficult boss, which was an outrageously animated female blimp riding a unicycle, when the doorbell rang. She took a few moments to relish her victory, watching the crescent moon with the long nose comically roll her eyes in opposite directions as the words 'Knock Out' appeared on the screen.
The bell rang again in three quick bursts before a loud, insistent pounding shook the door.
"I'm coming!" Sunset yelled, pushing herself out of her chair and stuffing a twenty dollar note in the pocket of her pajama shorts. When she swung the door open and looked at the delivery girl, she then knew to whom the voice on the other side of the phone belonged. She could recognize those freckles, pink hair, and bitchy frown anywhere. "Sour Sweet?"
"You!" The delivery girl said. "I say 'you' because I don't really care enough about you to remember your name."
Sunset tried not to scoff at the sudden sight of 'Sour Sweet the Crystal Prep Elite' adorned in a pair of drab, dreary khakis and a tasteless old polo shirt emblazoned with a faded triangular pizza patch. "I didn't know you worked at a pizza place."
"My daddy owns it, okay?" Sour Sweet bristled. "He makes me work for him on the weekends. Some crap about teaching me the value of a dollar, or some stupid thing like that." The indignant delivery girl removed the pizza from the oven bag she had been transporting it in. "Now, eighteen fifty. And I don't want to hear anymore complaints about the price."
"Your old man is your boss, huh?" Sunset commented as she dug the twenty out of her pocket. "No wonder you haven't been fired."
"Are you kidding me?" Sour Sweet snatched the cash out of her hand. "I've been trying to get fired ever since he made me start this stupid job." She handed the pizza over and frowned at the twenty dollar bill.
"Keep the change."
Sour's visage lit up with the sweetness of her trademark sarcasm. She folded her hands daintily under her chin and sang, "Oh gee, you're so generous!" Her expression then soured, her hands clinching into fists as they dropped to her side. Through a row of clinched teeth she grumbled, "I can now retire."
Sunset shut the door on her face without another word.
The rest of Sunset Shimmer's afternoon would be spent on her couch in front of the television. It was October, which meant something decent was bound to be playing. A few clicks of the remote and she happened upon a caption informing her that a monster movie marathon was currently in progress. Bingo. She liked old horror movies. The campier, the better.
She laid back in the soft cushioning of her couch and took the first bite of her pizza. An audible hum of delight escaped her when the flavor of the thick, gooey cheese graced her taste buds. The sauce was tangy, the pineapples were sweet and fresh, and the ham. Dear Celestia, the ham! These weren't the thin, little slices of lunch meat she was used to. They were thick, juicy cuts. She had complained about the price, but the quality of the pizza made it worth every penny.
It wasn't long before an empty pizza box laid gaping open on the coffee table. Sunset had eaten the entire thing by herself, and was now using her shirt to wipe the access grease off her hands. Unladylike? Perhaps. But that was something she was more than willing to cope with.
Laying sprawled out across her couch, using the arm rest as a head support, she dozed in and out of consciousness as a machete-wielding, hockey mask-clad maniac on the television chased a sexually permissive teen across some old campground.
She was surprised when she roused from her nap and noticed it was almost dark outside. She left the TV on as she shambled yawning toward her computer chair. The clock in the bottom right corner of her monitor read seven twenty two.
The window to her Steam library was left open, and she was reminded that she had a free digital copy of Doom for the rest of the weekend. With no plans, and nothing better to do, she booted up the game, determined to expand upon her progress.
She was in the action of liberating an imp's jaw from the rest of its skull when her messenger blipped.
Pink-a-Boo: Oi hoi! : 3
It was Pinkie Pie. Of course, it was. She was usually on at about this time. Sunset normally wouldn't mind putting her game aside to chat with her, but she was so close to a checkpoint, she could feel it. She fought desperately for survival, shooting, chainsawing, and glory killing her way across the hellscape in its pursuit. She just needed to reach the checkpoint, and then she could give Pinkie her undivided attention.
Pink-a-Boo: guess who has a date tomorrow
Pink-a-Boo: this girl right here! <3
Pink-a-Boo: .....
Pink-a-Boo: im pointing at myself but you probably cant see it
That caught Sunset's interest.
With her ambition of reaching a checkpoint abruptly forgotten, she paused her game and brought up her messenger in her eagerness for more information.
Sunstroked: seriously? 'o'
Pink-a-Boo: yepyep : >
Sunstroked: with who?
Sunstroked: do i know him?
Pink-a-Boo: hes cheese sandwich <3
Sunstroked: you're dating a cheese sandwich???
Pink-a-Boo: lol no silly
Pink-a-Boo: thats his name
Pink-a-Boo: <3 <3 <3 cheeeeeeeese sandwich <3 <3 <3
Sunstroked: Wow, this guy must be the real deal. You can't even type his name without hearts XD
Pink-a-Boo: im in love
Pink-a-Boo: cant help it X3
Sunstroked: O_O
Sunstroked: Pinkie...
Sunstroked: You just used the 'L' word
Pink-a-Boo: i know
Pink-a-Boo: date is tomorrow night...
Pink-a-Boo: so nervousited my head's gonna explode >_<
Sunstroked: Okay... How'd you guys meet? Who asked who out first? Where are you guys going tomorow, and what are you going to be doing? C'mon, I need details!
The conversation continued on until late in the night. Sunset hadn't even realized how long she had been chatting with Pinkie Pie until her eye lids began to feel heavy. The main topic of discussion was her date. However, Little snippets of gossip here and there about Sour Sweet's less than loved occupation and Flash Sentry's continuous advances were shared.
It was around midnight when Pinkie Pie finally excused herself. That Cheese Sandwich guy she couldn't stop talking about had tickets to take her to see a world renowned stand up comedian who was performing at a notably famous venue downtown. After that they were going a 24/7 all-you-can-eat buffet to challenge each other to a cupcake eating contest. She wanted to be well rested for that.
Sunset closed the chat window and remembered that Doom had been running in the background the entire time. The checkpoint didn't seem that important to her anymore, as she was simply too tired to care. She closed out her game, shut down her computer, turned off her television, and then she made her way to the bathroom.
She thought about getting in a quick shower as she brushed her teeth, but she was too exhausted to be bothered.
She gargled and swished a mouthful of very potent mouth wash, painstakingly counting to thirty before she allowed herself to spit it out in her sink, all the while reminding herself that the burning just meant that it was working.
When she eventually made it to her bed, she rested her head back on her pillow and reflected upon her day. It felt nice to have a day to herself. She would have liked to have spent her Sunday the same way, but the moment she had texted all her friends about Pinkie Pie's date, they were quick to collaborate with one another about a plan to follow them - 'Just to make sure this Cheese Sandwich guy is on the up and up,' Rarity had insisted.
It certainly seemed like tomorrow would be an opportunity for her and her friends to learn a valuable lesson about prying into others' affairs, after the typical hijinks and shenanigans ensue, and everyone spontaneously bursts into an inexplicably well choreographed song and dance routine about the importance of minding one's own damn business.
Sunset Shimmer knew that she was in no way perfect, and she couldn't judge her friends for wanting to spy on Pinkie and her date. She would be a hypocrite if she did, as she had agreed to tag along on the escapade. She just couldn't resist.
There was still so much more for her to learn when it came to friendship, but today, she didn't learn a damn thing. And as she closed her eyes, warm and snug under her quilt, she decided that, she was okay with that.
