Rainbow Reflections

by Bookish Delight

2: City Escape

After much fumbling with clasps and fasteners, and making sure her dress fit just right, Twilight Sparkle finally stepped out of one of Carousel Fashions's fitting rooms.

"Well... what do you think?"

The other girls gathered around her, joyful smiles appearing on their faces.

Rainbow Dash's palms went to her cheeks. "That. Looks. Awesome on you!' she said, with a squeal.

Fluttershy nodded. "Yes, what Rainbow, um, said. It looks... 'absolutely fabulous?'" She looked to Rarity nervously. When Rarity smiled and nodded, Fluttershy did the same in return. "Rarity, you've outdone yourself."

"Humble I may be, but I must absolutely agree in this case," Rarity said, stepping around a Twilight dressed in her Canterlot High Fall Formal ensemble. "The colors are all in place, the frills are perfectly spaced, the stripes match your hair and eyes perfectly, and... and just... oooooh!" Rarity trilled. "To think I had this lying around the store! Perhaps there's hope for me yet."

"Shucks, Rares, you're the only who didn't think you had in it you," Applejack said. "You'll get your business on the fast track in no time."

Whenever Rarity blushed, there was no hiding the occasion. "Thank you, Applejack. Coming from you, that means quite a lot."

"Now we just have to make sure we stay looking super-sweet for the dance!" Pinkie Pie said. "How much longer do we have, anyway?"

Rarity looked at the wall clock. "A few hours. Just enough time to make some last minute touches." She clapped her hands twice. "Alright, everyone, tailoring time is over. Now that we've all settled on our dresses, change out of them and use the bags provided. Take them home, fetch what you need to fetch, add what you need to add, freshen what you need to freshen, but be chop-chop about it! I'll be sending out the limo at precisely eight-thirty, so..." Rarity froze where she stood. "...oh, no."

"What? What?" Pinkie darted back and forth between the girls. "Where's the danger? Where's the fire? Where's the ice cream truck?!"

"No..." Rarity rapidly shook her head. "No, no, no, no, no!" Rarity ran over to Twilight, gripping her shoulders. "Twilight, you said you've been making yourself at home in the school library for the past couple of days, yes?"

Twilight nodded.

Rarity was frantic. "Well that just won't do at all! Especially if you're getting ready for this dance! One of us will simply have to take care of you in the interim. Naturally, I volunteer myself-"

"I'll take her," Rainbow Dash said.

---

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic x Equestria Girls:

"Rainbow Reflections"

Chapter 2: City Escape

by Bookish Delight, 2014-2015

All characters and referred properties belong to Hasbro.

---

The other girls hummed and nodded in acknowledgement — then froze partway. Silence fell over the room as everyone present who wasn't Rainbow Dash did a double-take.

Rarity was the first to recover. "Ah... Rainbow, dear?"

"Yeah?" said Rainbow, grabbing a dress bag and walking into the fitting room. "What's up?"

"I... hmm." Rarity put her fingers to her chin in a show of looking for the right words. "Rainbow, I will admit to being rather surprised yesterday, when you told us, out of the blue, that you would finally be attending one of these... how did you put it? 'Girly dances'?"

"Slow, boring girly dances," Rainbow replied. "The adjectives are important here."

Rarity rolled her eyes. "Yes, please forgive the oversight," she said, dryly. "But as I was saying: attendance is one thing, but now you're volunteering to help someone prepare? Don't take this the wrong way, but did I miss something?"

A chuckle wafted out of the fitting room.

"I'll take that as a compliment. Look, no offense, Rarity, but I've seen your room before. If it's still covered in clothing bits and magazines and all your other fashiony stuff? Twilight won't be able to take one step without tripping over something! I'm surprised you don't."

There was still no hiding a Rarity blush, not ever. "Not anymore, anyway," she muttered under her breath. "Fine, point made... wait. What about the ceiling fixtures you've always had in your room?" She pointed up. "Won't she bump her head on those?"

Rainbow walked out of the fitting room, back in her casual clothes and carrying her bagged dress. "Huh? Oh, the model planes! Yeah, I uh... I took all those down a year ago."

Rarity went from curious to serious. "Rainbow?"

Rainbow's mouth stretched into a smile. "Don't worry! I haven't given up the dream. I just..." Her eyes slowly shifted away from Rarity. "...keep myself honest, is all. Point is, my room's totally clear, and it'll have all the things she needs to get ready."

She walked over to Twilight, wrapped an arm over her shoulder and gave a small squeeze.

"Besides, I've spent less time with the Princess here than any of you, and that's totally not awesome in my book." Turning her head to Twilight, she added, "What do you say? Feel like filling me in on what I've missed since you got here?"

"I..." Twilight looked around, stopping at Rainbow's smiling face, and said, "Sure, I have no problem with that. Girls?"

The others cast glances among themselves, then shrugged.

"Well, that sounds like a right decent idea to the rest of us," Applejack said. "'Sides, what Rainbow wants, Rainbow, uh, usually gets," she added, with a sheepish blush and a smile.

"She doesn't live far from here, either," Rarity said, "which is good for me. Are you still in the high-rise?"

"Yep," Rainbow said. "West Canterlot District. Five-minute bus trip is all it takes."

"The bus?" Rarity gasped. "For goodness sakes, darling! After all the work we just put in, please make sure nothing untoward happens to your hair!"

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. "Yeesh." She gestured to Twilight, then the fitting room. "Come on, Twi. You should get dressed so we can get out of here."

Twilight giggled and gave a mock salute. "Sure thing, Soccer Queen."

She moved towards the room, but felt Rainbow Dash grab her hand in mid-stride.

"Hey. Twilight?"

Twilight looked back. "Huh?"

Rainbow cast her eyes towards the other girls, making sure they were preoccupied. Then she turned towards Twilight.

"There... there's more to me than soccer. I promise."

Twilight studied Rainbow's face. Coy and challenging... but also earnest. She'd seen it before, on her Rainbow, more than once. She never quite understood why whenever it happened.

However, she knew from experience that it was always best to respond in kind.

"I know," she said, gazing into Rainbow's eyes with a smile. "And I can't wait to find out what."

Rainbow's response was to slide her hand along Twilight's, fingers against fingers, with a slow, practiced grace, until they were finally apart.

Their eyes, however, never parted for a second.

"I was hoping you'd say that," Rainbow said, softly. "Go ahead and change. I'll be waiting."

---

Thirty minutes later, Twilight stepped off of a bus in a stumbling, zigzagging path, nearly dropping her dress as she did so. The dizziness had to stop eventually, Twilight told herself. It just had to.

Rainbow Dash followed — without the stumbling — and the bus roared away.

"I still don't know how you get around without these things. Or cars," Rainbow said, taking Twilight's dress from her.

"Trains. Very. Smooth. Trains," Twilight said, as her vision re-oriented. "Also, teleportation magic. Which I'm really starting to miss right now."

"Well, when that shows up in this world, I'll be first in line," Rainbow said. She gestured to a huge blue building standing in front of them. "Meanwhile, check it out! Welcome to Skycastle Apartments. Where only the most awesome people live."

Twilight craned her neck to look up the height of the structure. Its exterior paint was still clean and gleamed in the sunlight. "Wow," she said.

Rainbow chuckled. "None of these in your world either, huh?"

"We have some," Twilight said, "but only in the big cities, and none this tall being used for living quarters. It must hold a lot of poni-..." She stopped herself. "...uh, people."

Rainbow shrugged. "Holds enough, I guess." Rainbow looked around. "Speaking of which, where's your, uh, magical talking dog?" She paused. "Wow, I can't believe I said that out loud."

"Back at Rarity's. He told me he was 'very interested' in the differences between her boutique here and in my world, and wanted to study the place while 'helping her out'." Twilight paused as well. "Suddenly, I'm not sure letting him stay was the right decision."

Rainbow shrugged and chuckled. "Eh, guys are weird sometimes. Though technically he's still just a dog, right? How bad could things get?"

"I guess you're right," Twilight said, willing several destructive scenarios out of her mind as they invaded one by one. "Anyway, let's go."

The two went to the front door. Rainbow produced a small plastic card and swiped it through, unlocking the door. Both went inside, towards a small room Twilight could see at the end of the hallway.

"Elevators," Rainbow said. "You got 'em?"

Twilight nodded. "Though usually there's a unicorn inside to levitate them with magic."

"Whoa." Rainbow blinked. "Heh. Well, not needed here. Good ol' tech does it all."

Inside the elevator, Twilight counted 25 labeled buttons on the wall, just before seeing Rainbow press number 24. After a minute of standing still, and listening to the universal constant of elevator music, the doors opened, and the two girls stepped out.

They walked down a new hallway, until reaching a door with a symbol on the front that Twilight instantly recognized as Rainbow Dash's cutie mark. Rainbow Dash swiped her card again, and opened it wide.

"Here we are. Casa de Rainbow."

Twilight could only gape.

The walls were white, cleaner than the outside of the building. That cleanliness also stretched to the entire apartment. Once she and Rainbow took off their shoes, Twilight felt soft carpeting give way under her feet as she entered the living room.

In the center of the living room was a luxurious sofa, facing a wall along which sat a large, flat version of one of the "television" devices Twilight had seen in Canterlot High's AV room. In one corner she spied a desk with one of the "computers" she'd used in the school's library sitting at the far wall. In another corner, a fountain sat in solitude, spouting water that changed colors every few seconds, cycling through every hue in the rainbow.

Twilight toured the adjacent kitchen, and found it littered with several box-shaped appliances, as well as a slick black version of a traditional oven range.

It was only then, upon seeing so many devices up close, that she noticed that every single one of them, in either room, curiously and prominently bore a logo featuring a single violet star.

She looked at her skirt, then walked back to the television, which sported the largest version of the logo at its bottom. She looked at it, then back at her skirt again.

"Rainbow?" she called out.

Rainbow Dash walked over and joined her. "Yeah?"

Twilight showed her both stars. "Look familiar?"

"Hmmm. Yeah, I see whatcha mean." Rainbow's face scrunched in thought before she pointed to the star on the television. "Buuuuuuut that star's not connected to any 'Twilight Sparkle' we know."

"What makes you so sure?"

"First, because you're the only Twilight Sparkle any of us have ever heard of. If there is another you in this world..." Rainbow smiled at Twilight. "...then the world totally forgot to tell us. For our whole lives. And second?" She gestured around the room. "All of this stuff comes from Northstar Technologies, the biggest maker of gizmos in the world. They only set up shop in Equestrian City last year. Started buying out a bunch of stores. A few companies, too."

"Huh." Twilight's mind spun. "So, no connection, you think?"

Rainbow shook her head. "Nah. Believe me, Twilight, if you reminded me of them in any way..."

For a split second, Twilight could have sworn she saw Rainbow's face fall. In an eyeblink, however, her usual cheerful look was back.

"...well, I'd know. I'd know in a second." Rainbow snapped her fingers.

Twilight mused on this for a few moments. It made some sense. Large corporations and the narcissistic branding that came with them were hardly a foreign concept in Equestria. She looked at Rainbow once more, and decided to change the subject.

"Your apartment. It's so... shiny."

"Heh, yeah," Rainbow replied. "We have a housekeeper who comes in every week. Today was her day."

"Your parents must be super-rich to afford that."

Rainbow took on a sheepish look. "Ah, we're not really rich. Just well off. Money spoils ya. Like, the more I hear about that Diamond Tiara kid? The less I wanna be that loaded."

Twilight giggled, then looked around again. "Are they home?"

"Nope! Mom and Pop are on a trip to Prance. Business and stuff. They'll be back in a couple of days."

"What? They're not here to help for your big night?"

And there was the split-second face fall again. This time Twilight was certain she caught it before Rainbow willed it out of existence.

"I-it's... it's okay." Rainbow said. "I'm used to it. Besides, it's just a dance, right? I didn't even know I was going till the last minute. Not their fault."

She grabbed Twilight's arm, leading her through one of the living room's rear doors.

"Forget that, though. C'mon. Time I showed you my digs."

Comments

[TwiDashFan]

As I was reading this, I thought I had read this before and then remembered where I had read this. Looked back through your stories and realized it was yours.

[Tchernobog]

"'Sides, what Rainbow wants, Rainbow, uh, usually gets," she added, with a sheepish blush and a smile.

Am I sensing a history between Aj and Dash here~?

[PONYfan11]

my god

[Xelos]

5411321 I thought the exact same thing while reading this chapter. I was thinking to myself that I 'know' I read this before and turns out I did. It's basically a re-write of his previous fic 'Otherworldly Advice'.

[Azure_Shadow]

Was this on Fanfiction.net too? I could've sworn I've read this fic before. It's very good.

[PresentPerfect]

But... rainbow fountain in Humania? @_@ How?