Sunset Shimmer slays a dragon outside Canterlot High then goes to Sugarcube Corner. "I hate everything," Sunset Shimmer says to Pinkie Pie. Pinkie Pie is making her signature Banana-Split Monster Energy Smoothie. "Those things are going to kill you," Sunset says. Sunset cares for her friends.
"They will not!" Pinkie says. Pinkie grins her wide grin. Inhumanly wide grin. "They will pump my blood sugar to dangerously high levels. It is cheaper than Insulin."
At first Sunset had been scared Pinkie was an Equestrian operative. Now Sunset thinks Pinkie is the descendant of a forgotten Equestrian monster so horrible Starswirl never recorded its name. She mostly uses her powers for good. If she becomes President there will be Armageddon.
Sunset takes her regular order (Vanilla Smoothie with a slice of Dominos Pacific Veggie blended in) then shambles like a zombie or a ghoul or the Ghost of Christmas Past, something with shackles around its ankles that you associate with the clatter of chains, to her regular spot (table at the front window) and regular people.
"No hay today?" Rainbow Dash wiggles her eyebrows at her. Some days she moves them together, so at their apex they look like the Greek letter Omega. Some days she moves them separately, so one is up while the other is down. Some days when she is sad she only moves one. Sunset wonders if she can get the Dashes from all the universes to stand in an infinite line and do an infinitely long Mexican Wave with only their eyebrows.
"I hate everything," Sunset Shimmer says. She takes a slurp of the smoothie and gets a crumb of Feta cheese. Rainbow Dash keeps wiggling her eyebrows, over and over, like a video stuck on loop. "Do you?"
"Nope. Only some things," Rainbow Dash says. Her smoothie is rainbow-colored and her eyebrows are pinched in concentration. She's staring down at her phone. Sunset should use her phone and respond to her unanswered texts. Some days, Sunset wishes she was Rainbow Dash. Some days, Sunset wishes she was not here. That she was a cloud, or a bug, or a dragon being slayed by a teenager. "Rarity's almost here." Rainbow Dash says.
Sunset should tell Rarity she's sorry for not answering her texts. Sunset should tell Applejack she's sorry for everything she did. Sunset should climb to the top of the Empire State Building like King Kong and announce, to the entire world, that she's so sorry, and that she's going back through the portal so she doesn't have the chance to mess up and apologize again. Rarity walks through the door and takes a seat next to Rainbow Dash. "Did you slay a dragon today, Sunset?" Rarity says. Rarity looks at Sunset like a teacher. Rarity looks at Sunset like Celestia.
"I hate everything," Sunset Shimmer says. "Yes. On the steps outside Canterlot High." She's still in her white PE uniform. She wore it while slaying the dragon. It is now stained green. The dragon was toothpaste-striped and had candy-canes for teeth. It crawled out of the ground next to the statue, then Sunset Shimmer crushed it like a bug. The world it came from was TV-Y so it sounded like a squeaky toy while she was slaying it. Eeeee Eee! Eeeee Eee! Eeeee Eee Eeee!
"Cooooool..." Rainbow Dash wiggles her eyebrows slowly. That means she's relaxed. Sunset is good at reading people. Sunset used to use her powers for bad. Now Sunset tries not to use them at all.
"You can't keep doing this, Sunset." Rarity says. Rarity is right. Rarity once told a girl she wasn't cut out for the modelling business and she should try playing chess instead. Sunset wishes Rarity would tell her she was doing life all wrong. She wishes Rarity would tell her to become a chess grandmaster, or go back through the portal, or get slayed by a teenager. "It's clear that it's taking a toll on you."
"I hate everything," Sunset Shimmer says. "If I don't do it, who will?"
Twilight Sparkle walks in. Fluttershy and Applejack walk in with her. Twilight Sparkle sits next to Sunset Shimmer. Twilight Sparkle says, "Since I transferred to Canterlot High, which was... let's see... six weekdays ago, I've witnessed three beheadings, one group beatdown, a skirmish with a sentient water fountain, and one instance of what you all called 'Death by Party Cannon.'"
"Correct," Applejack says. Applejack is the element of honesty. Sunset wishes Applejack would tell her she hates her. Sunset wishes Applejack would tell her to go back through the portal. Sunset wishes Applejack would slay her like she slayed the dragon. "Anything else?"
"This feels unsafe," Twilight Sparkle says. "And unsustainable. It's really been taking a toll on you, Sunset."
"You just got here. I'm the one who's been dealing with it for months." Sunset Shimmer says.
"Ok," Twilight Sparkle says.
"Sorry." Sunset Shimmer says. "Sorry, sorry." Sunset hates everyone and everything. That includes herself.
"It's alright," Twilight Sparkle says. "It's fine."
Sunset Shimmer sips her smoothie. Bits of olive are stuck in the straw. She forces herself to smile. Sorry isn't enough. She should be relaxing her eyes. She should be reaching out and taking Twilight's hand. She should be throwing herself to her knees and begging for forgiveness. She should be going back through the portal. She should be slayed.
Pinkie Pie grabs their regulars and sproings over the counter. Now they are all cramped into their regular seats in their regular spots next to their regular people. They are all munching on their regular smoothies and feeling how they regularly feel. It is a regular day and Sunset Shimmer wants a meteorite to destroy the city. She wants a nuclear bomb to turn it into a wasteland. She wants to call in a precision missile strike on her location.
"Wanna write a song about slaying dragons afterwards?" Rainbow Dash says. "I mean, write the lyrics. I already know the instrumental is going to be DOOM music."
Sunset doesn't want to speak. Sunset thinks of slaying the dragon. She thinks of its striped body writhing on the crumbling concrete steps and its candy-cane teeth gnashing in fear and pain. She remembers the sound it made. She turns to Twilight. She imagines slaying Twilight instead of the dragon. Eeeee Eee! Eeeee Eee! Eeeee Eee Eeee!
Twilight Sparkle glances at her, then goes back to her healthy Kale-and-Broccoli smoothie. Sunset Shimmer is good at reading people. Twilight Sparkle has a crush on her, because she's never known a girl who wears a leather jacket and plays the electric guitar and slays dragons in her free time. Twilight Sparkle doesn't know that Sunset Shimmer hates everything and everyone, including herself. Twilight Sparkle doesn't know monsters come in all shapes and sizes, even cute girls who wear leather jackets and play the electric guitar.
"I hate everything," Sunset Shimmer says. "Sure. Let's call it 'I hate slaying dragons.'"
She imagines performing the song as she's slaying a dragon. She imagines hefting the electric guitar high overhead, then bringing it down like a sledgehammer. She imagines the hollow look in the dragon's multicolored eyes. She imagines holding still as it dissolves into candy-scented fluff.
"Dear, it seems to me like you don't like slaying dragons at all." Rarity says. She crosses her hands, over one another, on the table, next to her purse and her impeccably neat mocktail. "Perhaps you're more of an animal lover than you think?"
"I hate everything," Sunset Shimmer says. She bunches her hands into fists. "No. I'm just tired. I'm slaying too many monsters."
"We can't just close the portal?" Fluttershy asks. Fluttershy is holding a strawberry smoothie. Fluttershy has tucked herself against Rainbow Dash. Fluttershy has good self-preservation instincts. When Sunset Shimmer explodes in a brilliant corona of light, Fluttershy will be the only one who survives.
"I talked to Princess Twilight." Sunset Shimmer says. There's a princess. There's other dimensions involved. There's a whole chain of dominoes that started with a goddess picking Sunset out of a crowd and ended with her right here, right now. "The monster attacks are tied to the emotional state of the entire school. Unless we can get everyone to calm down and stop worrying, monsters will keep appearing."
"Who knew creatures from a magical pony land could be so lethal..." Pinkie Pie says.
Sunset Shimmer is a creature from a magical pony land. Sunset Shimmer wants to start a rock band that hides a nuke under the stage at their last show. Sunset Shimmer wants to go out in a blaze of glory. She supposes that is the same thing.
"I hate everything," Sunset Shimmer says. "Equestria wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. There's a reason I left."
Applejack snorts into her green-apple smoothie. "What, cotton-candy clouds weren't sweet enough for ya?"
Sunset Shimmer thinks of being eleven years old and precocious. She thinks of Celestia telling her that they were student and teacher and nothing more. She remembers staring at a candle-flame, watching wax drip off the side, as she realized that one day Celestia would forget about her. She remembers Celestia telling her she loved her as much as she loved all her little ponies. It felt unfair, when Sunset had only ever loved one pony her whole life. Couldn't Celestia love her just a little bit more in return?
Sunset imagines the dragon she slayed having a family. She imagines the dragon kissing its wife and dropping its kid off at school. She imagines the dragon living in suburbia, trying to fit into the driver's seat of an SUV. She imagines the dragon being annihilated in a precision missile strike. She imagines the dragon banishing its kid from their suburban house. She imagines the kid escaping through a mirror and slaying ponies for a living.
"I think we made Sunset Shimmer sad," Pinkie Pie says. "I think that, even if Equestria wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, it was still home and Sunset Shimmer still misses it. I think Sunset Shimmer doesn't like slaying Equestrian creatures, but she has to because humans don't live in a TV-Y world. I think Sunset Shimmer hates the world and everybody in it, including herself. I think Sunset Shimmer cares for her friends, and, as her friends, we should show her that we care for her too. C'mon, everybody, I know how we can make this right!" She claps her hands together. "What sounds do ponies make?"
There is a long, awkward pause. The girls all look to each other for an answer. In the end, it's Twilight Sparkle who speaks up. "I looked at the surveillance footage of you fighting that monster. If all Equestrian creatures make similar sounds, I guess ponies go... Pon-eeeee eee eeee?"
Rainbow Dash guffaws. Fluttershy cracks a smile. Rarity holds a coquettish hand up to her mouth. Applejack grins with one corner of her mouth. Pinkie is already laughing aloud. Twilight Sparkle looks at Sunset. "That's not... insensitive, is it?"
Sunset cracks a cool-leather-jacket grin her way, then goes, "Pon-eeeee eee eeee!"
They all join in, their voices overlapping and filling Sugarcube Corner with porpoise noises and laughter. Other patrons move to leave. A guy named Andrew laughs a little. "Pon-eeeee eee eeee! Pon-eeeee eee eeee! Pon-eeeee eee eeee!"
In that moment, Sunset Shimmer is not a runaway failure who can never return home and has to slay dragons to earn her place. In that moment, Sunset Shimmer is not a lunatic who almost took over the human world to feed her desire for revenge. In that moment, Sunset Shimmer is no more than an ordinary teenager on an ordinary day, surrounded by other teenagers having their ordinary days, drinking horrible smoothies that are Bad For Them and not giving a single fuck about what the world thinks.
Sunset Shimmer wants to feel this way more often. Sunset Shimmer wants to feel just a little bit more like this every day until her life is perfect. Sunset Shimmer wants to ascend to Alicornhood and live forever, on and on, until the end of time, feeling nothing but this.
Sunset Shimmer wonders, is this the end or just the beginning?
Sunset Shimmer feels a little less lonely. Sunset Shimmer feels a little less sad. Sunset Shimmer hates the world and everyone in it, including herself, a little bit less.
Author's Note
Written over the course of one frantic evening. Hopefully the first of many weekly oneshots.
This story took heavy inspiration from Tao Lin's 'Eeeee Eee Eeee.' Steps to write like Tao Lin:
1. No commas.
2. No pronouns.
3. The only dialogue tag you can use is 'says'.
To quote Brent Legault, "There's a lot of pressure to love and admire Sunset Shimmer. The pressure comes from within. Nobody I know likes Sunset Shimmer. Nobody but me is telling me I should love and admire her. The pressure is there even so."
