Twilight smiled with determination as the dust started to fade. That was a really strangely violent reaction. Usually it just faded away.
She opened her mouth as she prepared her speech. Only for her words to die in her mouth. Sunset... looked like she was in pain. Her clothes were more than a little bit of a wreck and she was cradling her arm.
Sunset's head raised and Twilight jumped in surprise. She was completely panicked. As Sunset turned away Twilight noticed something strange. Sunset's left arm was still red and one of her eyes were all wrong. Why? The elements were supposed to fix that!
Her red claw grabbed at the ground as she scrambled up and away from them all. She acted feral. She was scared. So she ran. She didn't know where she was running to. She didn't care. She just didn't want to go through that again. Through the pain that the Elements put her through.
"Hey! Get back here!" Rainbow shouted as she saw Sunset scramble away. To someone who already disliked her, it seemed like sunset was simply trying to escape retribution.
Sunset however wasn't going to be stopped. She ran away, around the hole on all fours and heard Rainbow's shout. She wasn't thinking clearly. She just wanted to stop Rainbow from chasing her.
Time seemed to slow as Rainbow watched as Sunset's left arm grew. It dug into the ground with ease and threw the slab of dirt backwards. It was only her fast reflexes that saved her as the heavy chunk of dirt slammed into the ground to the side of where she now laid
"What the hell!?" Rainbow shouted as Sunset made her escape.
Sunset could vaguely hear the sound of Rainbow's worried friends surrounding her as she got further away. She didn’t know where to go. What to do. It was all ruined again. Her head hurt as thoughts and memories of all the cruelty she’d caused constantly flashed through her mind.
Under normal circumstances the decision she made would have been the last one on her mind but she wasn’t of right mind. Not now.
She screamed as she ran through the portal. It was wrong. All wrong. The portal wasn’t supposed to hurt! But it was. It felt like something inside her was tearing in two different ways.
When she opened her eyes it was still dark. She was on her back outside. She hoped it hadn’t been that long. But then she remembered the portal. She pushed herself into a sitting position but then she realized. She was still here. Her body was still wrong. Her breathing picked up as she looked around, scooting backwards towards the portal.
Her confusion only grew though. Everything was covered in snow. There was no hole in the ground. There were no angry students glaring her down. What had happened? She started to rub her hands together as the cold started to get to her. Her clothes were in tatters but she noticed at least one part of her was warm. Her left arm.
She glanced over to where it’d been laying and to her shock the area where the arm had been was dry. The snow that should have been there had melted completely. Why was her arm so hot?! Come to think of it, was her breath warmer too? Were her legs? Was she… having a panic attack?
She was THE Sunset Shimmer. She didn’t have panic attacks. At least that’s what she told herself.
Yet as more and more unanswered questions popped into her head, the worse she felt. She was getting lightheaded, her head was pounding. She had to get away from here. To hide.
She shakily stood, holding her head. At least it was warm. As much as she hated to look at it.
Her plan was to get back to the library. To get into her hiding spot and sleep. She made her way around the building to a side window. She always made sure to block off the lock so she could get in.
“What? No, no, no, no. Why are you locked? Come on!” She grumbled as she pushed against the window before groaning. This happened sometimes but come on. She didn’t want to have to go to her backup.
But the window wasn’t budging.
“Damn It.” She grumbled before walking away. The walk was surprisingly calm. No one was out at this time of day in this temperature. It was about a half hour walk and by the time she arrived, she felt horrible. Even with the warmth of her red arm, it was still cold. How was there snow all over the place? The time of the day seemed right but… nothing else did.
She sighed as she turned the corner. At least she’d be out of the cold soon.
“What?” Her eyes were wide as she staggered forward. “It… It can’t be… Come on now, this isn’t funny.” The universe didn’t answer her however as she fell to her knees in front of the empty lot. Her backup. The cold, but free from wind building that she’d come to know was gone. Not just gone. But it’d been gone for some time. The “lot for sale” sign had already faded.
So much had happened tonight. All her plans were up in the air. Her body was mutated, it had somehow snowed and everywhere she used for shelter was gone.
Her mind was overwhelmed. Everything was spinning, blurring. Was something whining? She could hear a high pitched noise.
She barely registered as her body fell forward before everything went dark.
Sunset's eyes opened weakly as she tried to understand where she was. Was all of that just a nightmare? She felt warm. But it was also hard to move. It was bright, forcing her to wince.
Her mind was struggling to get in proper working order when she heard a voice.
"Whoa, whoa. Hey, calm it. Chill."
Her mind took a few seconds to register that voice. She remembered it all too well. It was the last voice she'd heard. It'd been shouting at her.
She pulled her body into itself as best she could but it was hard to move. Why was it hard to move?!
She flailed in whatever was constricting her as her eyes closed tight. She was scared. Earnestly scared. She could vaguely remember throwing something at her. Something big. Had she hurt her? It was all a panic filled haze.
"Whoa, chill! It's okay, you're okay- shit where is Shy when you need her?" She was mumbling to herself at the end. But there was no anger in her voice.
Sunset gulped and decided to risk opening her eyes slightly.
That was not the rainbow she remembered.
Her hair was short. Really short. Not buzz cut short. Kind of a guy cut. She was a little taller too. But the biggest was that while the Rainbow Dash she knew was strong, this one was buff. She was still lithe but had a build to her. She was wearing a simple combo of shorts and a tank top. She looked pretty comfortable.
She wasn't a scrappy teenager. She was an adult.
Sunset was even more confused now. Was this her mom? A sibling? Cousin? "Wh-where am I?" She was almost afraid of the answer.
"You're at my place." The Rainbow Dash looking woman explained. They were both quiet for a few moments before she scratched the back of her head "I… suppose that doesn't exactly say much." She mumbled before sighing. It did look like a normal apartment. A living room to be specific. She herself was seated on a couch. There was a recliner to her right side and a nice sized TV across the room with some various machines that she’d never seen before connected to it.
There was no door but there was what looked like a corner on the left that probably led around to a hallway with the rest of the apartment
"Right. We're in my apartment. It's a couple blocks away from where you passed out"
Sunset frowned. It still didn't tell her much but she had a vague idea of where she was at least. She also finally realized the reason she couldn't move was that she was wrapped tightly in a blanket that covered almost her entire body except above her nose.
"I'm home!" There was only one person such a soft voice could come from
That broke Rainbow from her one sided staring competition as she stood without a word.
"Hey, Shy I need to talk to ya." That was all Sunset heard as Rainbow went around the corner. They were too quiet for her to hear.
It didn't matter much anyway. Her focus was on at least getting one of her arms free.
Once she saw the red of her arm though she froze. She could feel warmth coming from it. It was far from a comfortable warmth though. Knowing what the red was from, she felt her body chill. She hated looking at it and quickly shoved it back into the blanket, pulling her other hand out. At least that one looked normal.
She looked up and saw Fluttershy approaching her. It could only be her. Dash was one thing but Fluttershy grew into her looks and then some. Tall and still wearing that same soft expression that Sunset had seen her wearing before the formal. Her clothes were a sort of casual formal. A top with a vest and simple slacks.
"Hello there. Do you know who I am?"
Sunset blinked in surprise. That wasn't the question she expected and she could tell that Rainbow who hung back at the entry was equally confused.
"Yeah. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, right?"
Fluttershy kept smiling as she nodded. Rainbow reacted to something but quickly schooled her features. "That's right. Rainbow told me she found you out in the snow. What were you doing?"
"I was looking for something" her pride forced her to keep quiet about the truth. She didn't want them to know about her situation. Even if this was completely different. Probably.
Fluttershy turned her head to the side gently "Were you looking for somewhere to sleep?"
Sunset flinched a little as she sunk her face into the blankets a little more.
"I'm sorry. Sunset told us that she used to sleep in the library so I made an assumption. I didn't mean to be rude." Her tone was soft but Sunset had the distinct feeling that Fluttershy knew how her words would affect her.
Sunset sighed and shook her head "No… you're right. But the window was locked so I went to the warehouse I used and… it was gone…" she bit her lower lip, flinching as she felt pain.
Rainbow finally spoke up as she pushed off the wall she'd been leaning on. "Yeah. Got destroyed like… two years ago." She took a seat nearby. "Also, I gotta ask. Doesn't that hurt?"
"Rainbow!"
Rainbow raised her hands in the air. "What? Look. I'm just curious. They look like they'd hurt and I'm curious. I'd rather ask now than keep glancing like a creep.”
Sunset raised a brow in confusion at that. “What hurt?”
“Your teeth. They look pretty sharp.”
“What?” Sunset asked before almost immediately bringing her hand up to feel her teeth. Rainbow was right. All of her teeth felt sharp. She had a mouth full of fangs. “Is- Is there anything else wrong about me?”
Fluttershy sighed and scoot closer “There’s nothing wrong with you. Just different.” She said, trying to cut Sunset’s self depreciation off at the head.
Sunset got something else out of it however. “So there is more.”
“Rainbow Dash. Stay here.” Fluttershy hadn’t noticed but Rainbow had started to sneak her way out of the room. It seemed that Fluttershy noticed right away “Get me a mirror too.”
Sunset frowned but Fluttershy kept her focus on her. “Like I said. Nothing is wrong with you. I don’t want you thinking that way. Just different from what you might be used to.”
“When did you become a therapist?” Sunset grumbled as she heard a bit of noise come from the hallway Rainbow had gone down.
Fluttershy smiled “I’m not yet. I still have two years to go at a minimum. But I want to keep going.”
Sunset finally smiled a little. It felt good to see someone she’d been so… horrible to so… normal and happy. “Going to be Doctor Fluttershy, huh?” She asked which got a small blush out of the butter skinned woman
“I suppose I will, won’t I? I’ll have to get used to being called that one day.” She said, much more confident than Sunset ever saw her.
As much as she just wanted to enjoy this, her memories wouldn’t allow her to. All the cruelty she’d done to Fluttershy pushed to the forefront of her mind. She hated it. It hurt. She could feel tears forming, causing Fluttershy’s expression to finally break it’s calm a little “W-what’s wrong?”
Sunset shook her head and tried to hide herself a bit more in the blanket “‘m sorry…I was- was horrible to you.”
Fluttershy’s face softened again as she smiled "I forgave you years ago."
"Years ago?" Sunset gulped. She didn't want to know the answer to what she was about to ask but the question had been on the tip of her tongue. "How- how old are you?"
"I turned twenty-one this year"
Well there it was "as far as I knew you were still seventeen. It- it couldn't have been more than an hour ago"
"Oh my."
"Found it!" Came a shout from Rainbow around the corner before she came back with a mirror. She passed it to Sunset, Fluttershy failing to stop the hand-off.
Sunset's hands shook as she looked at herself. For the most part she looked normal but… her eye and teeth- no, mouth were different.
Her mouth filled with sharp teeth and what at least felt like a stage tongue, though she might have been imagining it. At least if she kept her mouth shut no one would notice.
Her eye though. Black sclera,iris and teal slit pupil. That she couldn't hide. Not easily.
With those and her arm together she felt horrible. Constant reminders of when she made the second biggest mistake of her life.
Her mind was swimming. Jumbled memories and depressing thoughts were a constant. Things were getting hazy. She was scared. What would her life be now? No plans, no allies, no where else to run.
Maybe that was the point. Maybe the elements thought she was too far gone. Maybe this was meant to show her what acting like a monster earns you. Nothing and you become a monster yourself.
She could vaguely hear a pair of screams as a warmth encompassed her and everything went blank.
