The Solution
...is to never exist.
By Wanderer D
"Wallflower, stop!"
"Ugh, watch out, here she comes again," Rainbow Dash muttered, watching Sunset Shimmer run out of the building. "Who the hay is Wallflower anyway?"
"My guess is her," Twilight said, gesturing gently with her head at the girl that had just walked past them.
Rainbow shrugged. She looked vaguely familiar, but not someone she had interacted with a lot. "Let's just keep an eye out in case she tries to bully her. I wouldn't put it past her."
"Yeah. Let's hang out here while they talk," Pinkie suggested, "we can jump in if needed!"
Applejack and Rarity looked at each other and shrugged. "Works for us."
She felt her heart almost stop in fright when she heard that shout. Turning around, she spotted Sunset Shimmer, somehow calling her name, and running out of the school building where she should have been locked.
"You remember my name?" she asked, confused. She had… done things right… right? The memory stone was very simple in how it worked. She willed it to take memories away and it did. And she had done that exact same thing with Sunset and Trixie.
"I remember everything," Sunset replied with that infuriating, almost condescending tone dripping of unwanted forgiveness. "The memory stone. How I acted. All of it."
"What?!" Wallflower shouted. "How?!" She felt anger boiling deep within her. Wasn't everything she had gone through enough? Wasn't every effort she had put into this enough? Wasn't it time, this one time where things should go her way? "I erased the whole afternoon!"
She immediately noticed Sunset's friends react to that and she cringed.
"I'm sorry…"
"No you're not! I'll never believe you! You're just trying to look good in front of your friends! How am I supposed to get back at you if nothing I ever do works?" She felt her anger swell. She would punish Sunset Shimmer. She would make her—
"Please!" Sunset fell to her knees, interrupting her thoughts. She had never seen Sunset look so vulnerable. "Please… I- don't know if I can ever make it up to you… but if you don't return their memories now, they will never recover them. Once three days pass… they can never be returned!"
She watched, stunned, as Sunset lowered her head in complete defeat. That was it. She had won. She had taken Sunset's happiness away, just as every bit of happiness she had had been stored away from other's memories and—
"Is what she said true?" Twilight Sparkle asked.
Wallflower looked up to see the Rainbooms standing in a semi-circle behind Sunset's kneeling form. "I—"
"It is?!" Rainbow Dash gasped. "Y-you mean I've actually been friends with Sunset Shimmer?"
"Oh my. So every time she tried to talk to us…"
"...she was telling the truth!" Applejack completed Fluttershy's sentence.
"Really darling, after everything Sunset did to all of Canterlot High, what could she have possibly done to you to take revenge on both her and us?"
"I think you should give her memories back!" Pinkie said, "that way I don't have to figure out how I have so many pictures of her and us together in my phone!"
"I-I'll erase—"
"Please." Sunset whispered, interrupting them all. "I don't care about revenge. I will do anything you ask, Wallflower just please don't take them away."
"It's not just your decision, Shimmer," Rainbow Dash grunted. "I can't believe I was friends with you, but if I was, it was my memories that she stole."
Wallflower took a step back. "S-stay away! I will use the stone again and—"
A 'ding' chime broke through the conversation like a hot knife through butter. They all looked down at Sunset Shimmer, who, slowly and with trembling hands pulled her phone out of her purse. Behind her, the girls could see that her screen, under the alarm pop-up, had a picture of all of them together, in a big, smiling group selfie.
She dropped the phone on the floor, the screen cracking when it hit at an angle, a web-like shatter mark distorting the image.
Wallflower tightened her hand around the stone and gulped. Then she willed it to release the memories.
Nothing happened.
"No…" she whispered, eyes wide, pulling out the stone fully. "Come on! Work!"
"Wallflower…" Applejack growled.
"I-I can't! I'm trying! I can't!"
"Sunset!" Trixie shouted, running out of the school with both their backpacks in hand. She slid to a stop next to the group. "Are you okay?"
"They're gone."
The words that came out of Sunset Shimmer's mouth were cold. Wallflower prepared to erase her memories yet again if necessary.
"Oh no, you don't!" In an instant Rainbow Dash had used her super speed to snatch the stone from her hands, and Wallflower looked down at Sunset's ready-to-jump form with growing horror. She could almost feel the anger from the redhead, but instead of attacking her, Sunset's fists slowly opened instead.
Silently, as the few students remaining in Canterlot High surrounded the group to see what the fuss was about, stood watching, Sunset took her things from Trixie's hands and slid her journal out of her backpack writing something quick and short in it.
When she was done, she closed it and held it in her hands for a moment, before putting it and her geode inside her backpack, and passed it back to Trixie.
"Sunset?"
"It was a symbol of our friendship," Sunset said simply, without looking at her. "It's gone now. All they have are memories of me being a bully. They don't remember the Friendship Games as they happened. They don't remember the camp. For everyone in Canterlot High, I am just a bully." Her head lowered. "And I always will be."
Sunset stood up, straightening and taking a deep breath. She looked around and gave Trixie a small smile and then turned to Rainbow Dash, extending her hand.
Wallflower growled and took a step forward, but was held in place by Applejack, who shook her head at her, eyes merciless.
Rainbow Dash glanced from her, to the stone, to Sunset, clearly distrustful, but forcing herself to give the memory stone to Sunset. The latter contemplated the stone in her hand, looking up to match gazes with her.
Wallflower swallowed. There was… nothing there. She had expected anger. Frustration. Pain. Something. But Sunset's eyes were hollow. Slowly, her former bully turned the stone in her palms, studying it with expert eyes, then, when her eyes lit with understanding and sudden determination, she carefully lifted the stone and pressed it against her forehead.
It was then that it dawned on Wallflower what Sunset was going to do. Something she had thought about doing many times before deciding to simply torture Sunset for a little while to teach her a lesson.
"Wait, Sunset! Don't!"
It was too late. The stone flashed with greenish energy, enveloping the whole body and as that light was pulled through and into the stone, the light exploded around them, and she was gone.
Rainbow Dash shook her head, trying to make sense of what had happened.
The Memory Stone now lay shattered on the floor. There was no sign of… who had held the stone? The other students were also murmuring in confusion.
"Oh no," Wallflower whispered.
"Whoa there! What's gotten into you?" Applejack asked as Wallflower sank to her knees, and then glanced at the shattered pieces. "What happened?"
Wallflower knelt on the floor, slowly picking up the pieces of rock. "She's gone."
"We can see that," Rarity said coldly, glancing around.
Wallflower shook her head. "She took her own memories," she said, her voice trembling. "All of them, until there was no more left of what made her herself."
"What do you mean?" Rainbow Dash asked, even as someone gasped. The sports jock looked up at her friend. "Fluttershy? Do you know what she means?"
"It's something I've thought about doing." Wallflower said, her own voice sounding strange to her ears. "Taking everyone's memories of me away and just… deleting my own to forget everything that happened here."
"Why would you do that?" Twilight asked. "It makes no sense to erase who you are! It's basically like you didn't exist it's almost like d—" she covered her mouth.
"And that's why I never did," Wallflower confessed. "I hid from all of you. Every mistake I made. Every conversation that went wrong. Until I just… got used to not being seen." She took the pieces of rock. "I just wanted to get back at her. For when she bullied me. When she made fun of something I said. When she ignored me. I just—" she lowered her voice "—wanted to teach her a lesson… I wanted to win, one time. Just once."
"Well," Rarity said. "You did."
"But why would she disappear like that?" Rainbow Dash asked. "It doesn't make any sense!"
Twilight adjusted her glasses. "It is entirely possible that her being from Equestria had something to do with it. If she's a magical being, she might have used all of her power to do this… and deleted herself."
"But—" Rainbow Dash shook her head. "Why would she even do that?"
Twilight shrugged. "It's the only thing I can think of that makes sense."
"Well, I hope you're happy," Trixie spoke up venomously. She took a threatening step towards Wallflower, but another student stopped her.
Rainbow Dash put them out of her mind for now. She shook her head in disgust at what had happened. She tried to bring memories of whoever was there just a moment. Happy memories, something, like her smile or even a kind word, but she couldn't. She tried to remember bad things… casual conversations. Nothing came to mind.
Whoever that had been… there was only a sense that she was gone.
The other students eventually cleared the area eventually, leaving Trixie who had promised to watch over her.
The Rainbooms, unsure of what was going on, had muttered half-felt condolences to Wallflower herself, and Trixie, who appeared to be the only ones that had really known this mysterious person. The name Sunset Shimmer wasn't even muttered once.
There had been no happiness at her disappearance. No sense of loss. The memory wipe had been completely effective, only leaving her and Trixie untouched, as far as she could tell.
And now that it was over, she felt so… unworthy. Of forgiveness. Of victory. Of anything, really.
"Well then, get up," Trixie ordered.
Wallflower didn't argue, but she also stayed on her knees, stunned. She had won.
She had won.
She clenched her fists and gritted her teeth.
She had won. One time. After the bullying. After being willfully ignored and mocked.
Finally.
But she didn't feel happy.
Or even sad.
Why? Was it because no one remembered her nemesis? Had it really been worth it?
"Well, she's not listening to Trixie," Trixie said, sounding annoyed.
"Don't worry, she'll come back to her senses soon."
Wallflower blinked and looked up at the unfamiliar student in front of her, who raised a strange stone up. 'No… it couldn't be…'
Memories slammed into her mind like an avalanche.
"Wait, Sunset! Don't!"
Sunset stopped and looked up at her, fury in her eyes. "Why not?! You took everything from me, Wallflower! I don't want to stay and be… the monster I was!" Her eyes teared up. "Not to them! I can't bear them looking at me like that!"
Wallflower gulped, glancing at the confused faces of the others. She faced Sunset again. "I know I did wrong, I didn't know the memories would be sealed forever, please… there must be a way!"
"I can't… not without my friends!" Sunset cried.
"What about Trixie?!" Trixie had snapped. "I'm your friend!"
"A-and me too!" Wallflower had stammered. "Or I can be one if you let me…"
Sunset had given her a wide eyed look, then—
"Y-you… you actually—"
"Come on," Sunset said, her voice strong, but gentle. "We've hurt each other enough. It's time to fix not only what happened to my friends, but between you and I."
Slowly, she followed after Sunset, who passed by all the other students, unnoticed. "Where are we going?"
Sunset looked over her shoulder at her, a small smile of growing confidence in her face. "Home. In search of a cure."
Wallflower struggled to say what she was thinking, but she had to. "And if we can't find it?"
"We will," Sunset said firmly, stopping to offer her her hand. "As friends."
And this time, Wallflower really believed her.
The End
Author's Note
It was 2:30AM EST and I couldn't sleep. I figured, half an hour, a story... and this would not leave my mind.
Ah well. Hope you enjoyed!
