The reason I put into Sunset's letter about the charred timber wolf is because her friends don't know what happened with that other than the human worlds Cheerilee. Cheerilee is the only one in the human world that knows what Timber and the charred timber wolf did. So now Sunset's ex-friends know as well. I also have it stated what Sunset's original plan was BEFORE she met with Dumbbell Stallion and Rainbow Dash.

The sun slowly sank in the west as Apple Bloom sat next to her sister on the couch, each very anxiously awaiting the arrival of Applejack's friends. It had been six long hours since Applejack and her family returned home from the courthouse.

“Apple Bloom,” Applejack began, not looking up from where she sat, “when my friends get here, if they ask ya ta leave, Ah want you to leaving without any complainin'. Understand?”

“Yeah, Ah understand. Ah I know I messed up really bad and put our family through the mud.” Getting up from her place, Apple Bloom looked out the living room window. Seeing three cars pulling into the driveway, she continued, “Ah know Ah can’t ever be forgiven for what Ah did, but Ah’ll work really hard to earn yer forgiveness, Applejack. Ah promise, Ah won’t let my fears get the best of me again.”

Getting up as well, Applejack headed over to the door when she and her sister both heard the doorbell ring. Opening the door, Applejack let Principal Celestia, Principal Luna, and her friends into her house, saying, “Thank y'all kindly fer comin'.” Everyone entered the house except Rainbow, who didn’t show up.

Fluttershy took a seat on the couch, saying to Applejack, “I called Rainbow to let her know she could stay at my house for a few more days. When she agreed, I told her you wanted her to be here. She told me to tell you that she wants to be left alone for now and sends her regards. I think she's too upset with what happened at the courthouse today to be around any of us right now.”

“Alright.” Applejack let out a tough sigh, then continued bitterly. “Ah'm a mite upset myself at what happened today, not ta mention what happened to Sunset and how we all treated her.”

“We can work on that tomorrow,” Twilight began, giving Apple Bloom a scornful look. “While on the way over here, I arranged with Principal Celestia to attend classes for the next few weeks.” Looking down, she continued, “I don’t know if I can help any of you, but I will at least try.”

As Celestia took her seat, Applejack noticed that Celestia was carrying a box in her hands. Setting the box down on the coffee table, Celestia opened it, saying, “When I handed you Sunset's letter before her funeral, I forgot to give these to you as well.”

“Ah see.” Applejack looked over the three books that were inside the box. One book looked old and musty. It had a long, winged rod with two snakes coiled around it. Under the caduceus was a green stethoscope and silver horseshoe. The second book was made from brown leather with a green scarab on the cover, a crown above the scarab's head. The third book looked a little newer than the other two. It had a large, golden sun on the cover of it.

“Do ya know what's in the books?”

“No. I figured it'd be best if we all discovered the contents together,” Celestia responded, also giving Apple Bloom a cold, angry stare. “After we hear what you called us here for, that is.”

“I think it is best that your sister not be here for this,” Twilight began angrily. “I'm still very angry with her, and I don’t want any further issues with her.”

“Ah understand, Twilight. I’ll leave so that you can spend time with my sister.” Apple Bloom walked out of the living room. “I’ll be out back with Winona, Applejack.” The girls heard the back door open and a dog's happy barking.

“I'm sorry I had to ask her to leave, Applejack, but--"

“No, it's alright, Twilight. She and Ah need time to deal with this, and havin' her here now with how we all feel will only make this harder.”

“Speaking of, why did you ask us here, darling. I thought with all that happened at the courthouse, you would want to be alone. I know I wanted that,” Rarity asked. “But my mother and father want to discuss what happened today, and I am very worried about what's going to happen to us once we get our summons.”

“Right, let's get ta the point," Applejack said reluctantly. "Ah asked y’all here because Ah have a letter that was written by Sunset, according to Principal Celestia. Ah haven't read it yet, but Ah'd like to read it to y’all now, if y’all will let me.”

“Of course we will let you,” Luna said softly. “I know I certainly would like to know what she wrote”

“Thanks, Vice Principal Luna. Ah don’t think I can bring myself to read it by myself, which is why Ah want y'all to be here with me when Ah break the seal and actually read it.”

Applejack went to her fireplace mantle, picking up the letter. She breathed heavily as she broke the seal . The parchment felt soft and smooth in her hands as she took the letter out of its envelope.

“Dear Applejack,

You asked me a few weeks ago if I had anyone waiting for me back home. I told you that I don’t, but I didn’t tell you the reason for that. Honestly, I wanted to when we had our heart-to-heart in the park. I wanted so badly to spill the beans about my origins, but I was scared that if I did so, you'd just see me as a freak or madwoman. I must be out of my mind to do this through a letter, but nevertheless, I want you to know the real me.

Let me start at the beginning. I don’t know how old I was before I was brought to Princess Celestia. I think I was around one, maybe two years of age, but what I do remember is that for a time, I was very happy.

One day, though, when I was ten years old, I was reading a book in Celestia’s library when I got up to select another book. I bumped the shelf next to me, causing something to fall from the top of the bookshelf and hit me in the head. After a few moments of saying a few words I shouldn’t have said, I looked to see what had hit me.

What lay before me was a brown leather book which had opened when it hit the ground. I closed the book to check the cover, which depicted a gold caduceus with a green stethoscope and silver horseshoe under it. I have included this book with this letter as well, as proof of what I am saying. As I examined the book, I saw the corner of a piece of paper sticking out. Reopening the book to see the paper, I saw, to my shock, my own birth certificate. And to my horror, Celestia's name was nowhere to be seen on it.

To say I was angry is an understatement. I was downright pissed. I took the book to Celestia, whom I found in her garden sipping tea, and demanded to know if what I read was true or false. To my anger and horror, she confirmed it was true that I wasn’t her daughter, but her deception didn’t stop there. I felt after I had my conversation with Princess Celestia that she was still hiding something from me, although I couldn’t quite put my hoof on what. I just knew she was hiding something.

A week passed, and I barely spoke a word to her. I suppose I was just being selfish, but she was no saint, either. How could she have kept something like that from me? I just had to find out what else she was keeping from me. Being so young and reckless, I did something that I knew I shouldn’t have done.

Princess Celestia kept a journal about all the stuff she and I did together. I guess she kept it so that when I was old enough, she and I could read it and remember my lie of a childhood. Well, I got a hold of her journal while she was tending to her garden and read it. I learned about a dark artifact called the Demon's Heart. I also learned that Celestia had used it to bring back her husband Storming Winds, a pony she claimed was my father. I also read within that damn book that no sooner did she bring him back than she ended his life!

But that wasn’t all I learned by reading her journal. I also learned where she kept the Demon's Heart. Well, wanting to see it for myself, I soon found my way to her vault and very quickly discovered to my complete surprise that I was able to open it.

I went inside the vault and looked around a bit. There were all sorts of things inside that a foolish little filly such as myself could get into all sorts of trouble with. At the back of the vault, I found the Demon's Heart. Placing my hoof on it, I noticed right away that it thumped like a real heart.

Before the guards came, I took it out of the vault and brought it to my room. However, before I could study it or even try to use for myself, Princess Celestia sent for me. We talked, and again, I felt like she was still trying to hide something from me. I had asked her about the birth certificate, and she told me that my real parents died giving their lives to save me from a dragon.

I asked about Storming Winds, and though it pained her to talk about it, she told me that he had died on a diplomatic mission to the griffons' kingdom. Well, I did some digging, but there never was such a mission. I even went to the kingdom on my own against Celestia's knowledge. Every griffon who would talk to me told me that they've never heard of Storming Winds.

So again, without Celestia's knowledge or consent, I began to look into my origins and traced them back to Crystal Ridge, which was little less than a small, upcoming town in those days. I asked Celestia about it, and she forbade me from going there, but I didn’t listen to her. I wish I had; I may never have become the monster I was at the Fall Formal.

It took nearly every coin that I had saved to get me there, not to mention a few well-chosen words here and there, but a few days later, I at last stood in the town square of Crystal Ridge.

I recall clearly that the air was very cold, the town being far north of Canterlot. After speaking to the townsponies, I was directed towards a large, old mansion. The building itself looked like something from one of those horror movies that Rainbow likes to watch so much. I mustered up my courage and went inside. That's when I learned the truth. That's when I learned why Celestia was so adamant about keeping me from that town.

I wish I never went there. I wish that I had simply let go of my need to know who I was, where I came from, and how I came into being. I found pods, Applejack. Huge, glass cylinders filled with translucent green liquid, each with a number, ranging from one to twelve. And worst of all, each one held a pony inside of it that looked exactly like me.

I was horrified, to say the least, but despite my dread, I pressed on into the room and examined the clones. Each pony was badly deformed, as if the process to make them had somehow failed. Eventually, I reached the end of the room and found markings on the floor that showed that there should have been a thirteenth and fourteenth pod. It didn't take long to determine who the fourteenth clone was, but I couldn’t find my pod anywhere.

I began to look for clues and soon found deep scratches in the stone floor behind where the pod should have been, as if something very big and heavy had been moved back and forth several times. I followed the markings in the floor and soon found my pod, along with the thirteenth pod, in another room overlooking the cliffside behind the mansion. Outside, a storm was beginning to brew, perfect weather for the turmoil I felt.

When I stepped forward, I must have stepped on something that triggered a door to open to my right. Entering this new room, I found a library filled with all sorts of books on medicine and other forms of science. Science and medicine that I thought were long since forbidden by Equestrian beliefs due to a war with creatures called Umbrims. I’ll let Twilight explain to you what they are and what they did. Reading over the books, I began to fully understand that I was a clone of Celestia’s first-born daughter, who had died by sudden foal death syndrome. What an honor, right?

Apparently, the filly's body was removed from her family crypt, and I was created a year and half later. My body aged within my pod, closely watched to correct any mistakes or problems.

As I read those books, I came across several passages about the thirteenth clone, about how she was held in a different place than the rest of us. Apparently, when the scientists awoke her and released her from the pod, she became violent and attacked them, using magic more potent than she should have had at her age. They sedated her and kept her in suspended animation in her pod, which they moved to a different room for security measures.

Something clearly went terribly wrong with her creation. According to the journals, she began to show signs of mental and physical deterioration and damage. They apparently tried a new method with her and me than they did with the others in an attempt to force our bodies to age more quickly. I am sure that is what caused her to begin to fall apart, but for some reason, my body was unaffected. Neither of us aged any more quickly, but I still had a normal growth. At least, as normal as growing in a tube can be.

After the thirteenth, whom they just called "Thirteen", was placed back into her pod and put away, they decided to awaken me from my pod. Like Thirteen, my magic was also above average, but unlike Thirteen, the very first thing I did was teleport out of the lab.

I don’t have any memory of this or of being awoken there. I don’t even know who the books I'm giving you belonged to other than the one with the sun imprinted on it, which is Celestia’s journal. I also don’t know how any of them got into my safety deposit box (though I suspect Celestia put her journal in there for memories' sake), nor do I know why the other two books didn’t burn up when I destroyed the library I got them from.

I do, however, recall clearly that after I read the books, I completely lost control. I destroyed the library, and all of its secrets went up in a single blaze of green flames. Not satisfied, I left the mansion and let loose my rage on the townsponies. All fifty of them died by my hooves. My most painful memory is of a mother and filly holding each other in fear as I tore through the town. Their love sickened me, and I made bloody work of them. I still have nightmares about that night.

Anyway, Celestia found me and begged me to stop, but I simply didn’t care any more. I wasn’t her baby. I wasn’t her daughter. I wasn’t even a real Equestrian. I was nothing more than a lab experiment. And she knew. She had to have known. Why else wouldn't she want me to go to Crystal Ridge. I hate her so much, Applejack.

To make this brief, she and I fought, the fight went to the mansion, she slammed me into Thirteen's pod, and the pod smashed through the marble railing and fell to the cliffs below. I stopped my fight with Celestia long enough to dive after it. I may not have been a true-born Equestrian, but I wasn’t about to let the only thing, the only connection that I had to Equestria die. I thought if I could get to her pod before it hit the ground, I could teleport her and myself to safety. But when I was within a few feet of the pod, Celestia decided to swoop down and grab me, and I watched as the pod continued its fall.

We landed a few feet from the pod. I broke free of her and ran over to it, but I saw nothing inside of it. To this day, I don’t know where the body is. I became even more enraged and attacked Celestia again, but I was too worn out to use my magic, so I used my hooves instead. She simply wrapped her damn wings and hooves around me until I cried myself dry. After a few hours had passed, she told me that for my crimes, I had to leave her home, that I was banished from her heart and her castle. Stung and angry at the sudden banishment--only hours after she comforted me and let me cry on her shoulders, mind you--I vowed revenge. She didn't even give me the courtesy of bringing me back to Canterlot, the bitch! She just gave me enough bits and supplies to get back to civilization, and she left me. It was a five months later that I met Cheerilee. I was just entering my eleventh year.

I was on the road when I met her. I was so very hungry, cold, tired, and dirty. Cheerilee must have seen everything I needed--food, warmth, care, and most importanly, love--and she brought me to Saddle Ville. She taught me how to sing and helped me augment the knowledge I already had. She was a natural-born teacher. I stayed with her and her husband Musical Skies till a week before my fifteenth birthday. But never once did I forget Celestia or what she had done to me. Never once did I forgive her.

One day, Musical Skies had thought it was a good idea to bring me and Cheerilee to the crystal caves underneath Canterlot, said to be one of Equestria's most breathtaking treasures. Cheerliee told us to go ahead without her, much to my dismay. But I did get to spend some much-needed quality time with the pony I started to call my father.

It was then that my life would take another turn for the worse. Musical Skies and I were headed into the mountains to leave for Canterlot. I remember I was happy and so excited. Despite growing up in Canterlot, I'd never been to the caves below the city before, and I wanted to see everything. Even though it meant that I would possibly have to see her again, I didn’t care. Nothing was going to stop me from seeing those caves.

The charred timberwolf attacked without fear or warning. Reacting quickly, Musical Skies fired his magic at the beast, striking the side of its face and leaving a large scar. I, too, fired my magic, but unlike Musical Skies, I had missed completely. In a freak accident, I struck the bell that hung in Saddle Ville's town square. The bell was made of highly polished silver and quartz crystal, which sent my magic back at the mountainside, causing an avalanche.

Before I could react, Musical Skies used his magic to toss me into a nearby cave, saving my life. A few hours later, another timberwolf, this one white and much friendlier, dug me out. It left shortly after it saw that I was okay, and I headed back to Saddle Ville, not knowing that Cheerilee was already there, holding the broken body of her husband.

I tried, Applejack. I tried to explain to her that I didn’t mean for the avalanche to happen, but she wouldn’t listen. She and the other ponies chased me away, so I took the map what little bits I had and headed back to Canterlot Castle. I got there just past dark and waited. When Celestia retired to her bedchamber, I broke into her private library, learned about the magic mirror, and came to your world. I was broken and wanted someplace, any place, that I didn’t have to feel so hated, so alone. I had lost it all before, and now, thanks to Anon-a-Miss, I have lost everything once again.

So you see, Applejack, that is the type of friend you took in: someone who was completely broken, who lost everything trying to rebuild her life, only to be broken again and again. Someone that did unspeakable horrors to an innocent town and its ponies. All of this is to say that I don’t blame you at all for wanting to turn on me. I wouldn’t want to be around me, either, not after all that I have done. I just wish you waited until you knew the real me insted of throwing me away over a lie. I ask only two things from you as you finish this letter. I am going to place the Demon's Heart into my locker before I head out on the open road.

One, I ask that you find someone who you trust completely and fully to destroy the Demon's Heart; it is far too dangerous to keep in this world or any other.

Two, find out who that girl at the mall was, the one who looked exactly like me. Be friends with her. Real friends, not the fake friendship we had. That way, I can at least live knowing that my former friends are friends with a Sunset, even if it's not me.

I know that leaving might not solve my issues and that, thanks to Twilight banishing me from Equestria, I can’t go home ever again unless it is under her supervision, but I don't care anymore. I just want take this final moment to bid you a good farewell, and although I doubt we can be friends anymore, I do wish you all the best.

Sincerely,

Sunset Shimmer.

Swallowing hard as she put away the letter, Applejack said softly, not looking up to Twilight, who had her head hung low, “Twilight, what did Sunset mean when she said ya banished her?”

“I...felt at the time that she was too dangerous to be let back into Equestria, so I formally banished her from Equestria. She couldn’t return unless I or someone else was there to supervise her. I did this after the Battle of the Bands.”

“Ah see.” Applejack sniffed hard, trying to fight back her anger and tears. “Did you know about any of the stuff she put into her letter?”

“No. I didn’t know she was a clone. But I do know that she wasn't the only one to survive that night.”

“Darling, whatever do you mean?” Rarity piped up.

Twilight replied, “Well, for starters, I met who I thought was this world's Sunset outside the hospital, but when I mentioned Equestria--which I really shouldn't have done, now that I think about it--I saw something in her eyes, like she recognized the name. With that and the circumstances in which I found her, I...I think it was Thirteen." With a light sigh Twilight continued, "And that's not all. I was brought up to Crystal Ridge by Discord and was attacked by somepony that I don’t know and don’t want to know. It left me mentally broken and a real mess.”

“What are the Umbrims, and what did they do?” Pinkie asked, her hair completely flat.

“They were a race of shadow-like ponies created by King Sombra, who used them as weapons. Through them, he was able to conquer a fifth of Equestria in less than six months. They can’t die, and they can’t be hurt by metal, stone, fire, water or wood.”

“Then how the hay did y’all get rid of them?” Applejack asked, shocked. “Ah would think something like that woulda wiped y’all out long ago.”

“They very nearly did, but you see, Sombra used himself to create them. They were more or less little versions of him. That's why cloning is forbidden in Equestria: Thousands died because of Sombra, and thousands were unjustly imprisoned. The only ones that ever stood a chance at killing them were the merponies that lived in the Celestial Sea, which is why he started wiping them out.”

“Is that why Adagio and Aria got so upset with Celestia when she tried to bring back her husband? Because they fear that something like that will happen again?” Rarity asked, worried. “I would think they would actually want Princess Celestia’s help with this. Why would they turn her away like they did?”

“There is much bitterness between my people and theirs. We both have our stories as to why we went to war one thousand years ago. They tell one story, we tell another, but in any case, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I find the Demon's Heart and get rid of it before it can be used.”

Pinkie sniffed, saying, “I've got it, Twilight. It's in my locker. But Dumbbell stabbed Sunset with it while he was beating her up. The Demon's Heart has already been used.”