Author's Note
Howdy, y'all. Take two on a follow-up fic to "I'll Stand By You;" the first one I did was admittingly pretty harsh, so I decided to write one that played the idea out a tad gentler.
Again, props to Featherfury for giving me the idea for the fic. Thanks, pal.
What Have We Done?
Things had gone back to normal for the students of Canterlot High School after Anon-a-Miss was taken down. Babs Seed, the culprit behind the Mystable account, had been forcefully outed at a school assembly called by Principal Celestia and Superintendent Discord, where she admitted to being the one who had hacked into different students' devices, posted their embarrassing photos and stories, and made a lot of them look like fools. She then publicly deleted the Anon-a-Miss account, as well as her personal Mystable account, and was escorted off the school premises by the superintendent himself, as he and Celestia had agreed to expel Babs from the Canterlot City public school system.
Yes, life had gone back to normal for the students.
Except for a certain quintet of girls known as the Rainbooms.
Back when Anon-a-Miss was just beginning, the first posts had been about Applejack's childhood nickname and a closet full of the most ridiculous clothes Rarity had designed. Since these secrets had been exposed at sleepovers the girls had held with their sixth member Sunset Shimmer, who was a reformed bully, they were quick to assume that Sunset was the mastermind behind Anon-a-Miss. Feeling hurt and betrayed, they turned their backs on the girl, and most of the other students followed suit as their secrets were posted online. The only student who had given Sunset the benefit of the doubt was a girl named Danielle Ratigan, who had stayed by the former bully's side and protected her from the other students' harassing, earning their ire as well.
Once the Rainbooms had discovered the true identity of Anon-a-Miss, they had profusely apologized to Sunset, hoping to earn back her friendship and trust.
However, she didn't give it to them.
Sunset had called out her former friends over how quickly they'd turned on her with little evidence, and decided that she didn't want to be their friend for the foreseeable future.
It had been a week since Sunset had cut her friends out of her life, and now they were gathered at the Sweet Shoppe, as they usually did every Saturday. However, this gathering felt more like a funeral than a meeting of camaraderie. Pinkie Pie's normally poofy hair was flat, Rainbow Dash had her hands balled into fists in her lap, Rarity's cheeks were a mess of mascara stains, Applejack had taken her hat off, and Fluttershy hit her face behind her hair.
No one spoke for the longest time, until Rarity finally managed to break the silence, her voice quavering slightly. "So...Applejack, any word about how your family reacted to Babs being Anon-a-Miss."
Applejack sighed. "I talked to Big Macintosh an' Granny Smith, an' they both agreed with my wantin' to ban Babs from Sweet Apple Acres for a long time. Plus, her folks took away all her electronics an' are sendin' her to military school." She frowned darkly. "No less than that little varmint deserves." The other girls nodded in agreement, then went back to silence.
Until the silence was broken by a small sniffle from behind the curtain of long rose-colored hair, along with a tiny whisper. "What was that, sugar cube?" Applejack asked Fluttershy.
"What have we done?"
The other girls knew exactly what Fluttershy was referring to. They had all had a cloud of guilt and regret following them ever since Sunset disowned them.
Rainbow growled and pounded her fists on the table. "Gah, I can't believe how badly we fucked up!"
"Dashie, language!" Pinkie glumly reprimanded the rainbow-haired athlete. "What if the Cake twins heard you?"
"I don't give a flying fuck!" Rainbow practically shrieked. "Let them know how badly we fucked up! Let them know that we're a bunch of horrible, backstabbing bitches! Let them know how we turned our back on our friend, on the girl who HELPED US SAVE THE SCHOOL, FOR FUCK'S SAKE, because we all just ASSUMED that she had gone back to being bad!"
Applejack nodded sadly. "We failed Sunset by what we did. We failed the school. Hell, we failed our Elements of Harmony! I'm supposed to be the Element of Honesty, and yet I chose to believe Babs' lies instead of tryin' to find the truth!"
"I'm supposed to be the Element of Kindness, and yet I was cruel to someone who needed my compassion," Fluttershy whimpered.
"I'm supposed to be the Element of Generosity, and yet I couldn't spare a moment to listen to her side of the story," Rarity sobbed.
"I'm supposed to be the Element of Laughter, and yet I made poor Sunny cry goodness knows how many times," Pinkie squeaked.
"I'm supposed to be the Element of Loyalty, and yet I turned my back on a friend," Rainbow grunted. "How could we do something like this to our friend? To our FAMILY?"
Another blanket of silence, until yet again the timid yellow girl spoke up. "Because she was never our friend."
"Whatever do you mean, darling?" Rarity asked.
"You don't mean you think Sunset really IS still bad, do ya?" Pinkie inquired.
"No, that's not what I mean," Fluttershy assured. "What I mean is, well, let's be honest with ourselves, if Twilight hadn't asked us to keep an eye on Sunset, to include her in our circle, after she was reformed at the Fall Formal, would we really have done it?"
The girls looked at each other sadly, realizing that Fluttershy was right. The major reason they HAD agreed to accept Sunset as a friend was because of Twilight.
"It pains me to admit it, but you're right, dear," Rarity agreed. "I doubt very much any of us would have given Sunset the time of day after the Fall Formal, much less made her a friend."
"Yeah, we would've just shunned her like everyone else did, and not really thought she was reformed," Pinkie piped up.
"Or that she even COULD reform," Applejack added.
"God, we're just as bad as everyone else at school," Rainbow sniffed. "No, I'm wrong; we're WORSE than the rest of them. We made Sunset think we were her family, when we never even thought of her as a friend. At least everyone else at school was honest with how they felt about her!"
At that, the five girls began to cry. After a few minutes, they began to calm down. "N-Now what do we do?" Pinkie asked.
"I...I guess we give Sunset time to figure out her true feelin's," Applejack responded. "An' IF she ever decides to forgive our sorry hides, we do everything in our power to let her know that we're now one hundred an' ten percent ready to accept her for who she is."
"Yeah, we act like REAL Elements of Harmony from now on," Rainbow agreed. "Who's with me?" The girls all erupted in a chorus of agreement, ready to be true friends to Sunset Shimmer if and when she decided to try to be their friend again.
