To: Rainbow Dash
From: Principal Celestia
Dear Rainbow Dash,
I feel as if I owe you an apology. This project was supposed to be a simple surprise for your classmates. You'd learn your lines, film the video, then head back to your classes by Tuesday. There weren't supposed to be any complications. After all, I had no reason to anticipate the violent reaction your fellow peers would have to your absence. Yet, here we are.
Micro Chips hid a camera in my office to spy on us. The police caught him, and now he's in out-of-school suspension for a week. Zephyr Breeze manipulated several classmates into giving him their belongings, pretending like he knew what your peers refer to as "the truth". Your own friends, Applejack and Rarity, began arguing because one wanted to know and the other didn't. The whole school fell into CHAOS, all because you were in my office.
And then, there's Diamond Tiara. I almost want to applaud her, because she's the only one who tried to put an end to this madness. But at the same time, she just made it worse. She exposed the secrets of almost every other student, humiliating them and starting at least three fights in the hallway. Her actions are inexcusable, but so are the actions of every student who exposed another to save their own hide. Not once in my entire career have I had to make a list of students who need to be written up. In fact, this time, it's easier to make a list of students don't need to be written up. That's how far this situation spiraled out of control.
To be frank, I am utterly appalled at the actions of your peers. When I reached out to you to film this "Welcome to Canterlot High" video, it was because I had full pride in our Wondercolts. I thought we had a school full of students who regularly practice the magic of friendship and spread its ideals wherever they go. This video was meant to be a pleasant surprise for them, celebrating the wonderful things they've accomplished and the fantastic people they've become. Of course, I see now that the words on the script I gave you are false, and perhaps our students are not worthy of the praise we were planning to give them. If this is how they treated each other, how they treat you, then clearly, I have failed as the principal of this school. I'm sorry, but I'm cancelling the project.
When you get the chance, I would suggest you thank Sunset Shimmer, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Twilight Sparkle. They are the only students who truly stayed out of this. None of them tried to invade your privacy, and none of them encouraged their fellow peers to find "the truth" out for them. Also, thank Vice Principal Luna. She caught wind of this faster than I did, and, over the weekend, pretended to be on the students' side to learn much of the information I have just relayed to you. Micro Chips and Sandalwood confessed all the secrets, theories, and drama to her on Saturday, so without her, we would not have learned about Zephyr Breeze, who hid the camera, etc.
Again, Rainbow Dash, I am so sorry. This is my fault for not better educating my students on the values of friendship. You deserve to be treated better than the way they've treated you.
Sincerely,
Principal Celestia
To: Applejack, Rarity, Micro Chips, Diamond Tiara, Sandalwood, Zephyr Breeze, +89 others
From: Rainbow Dash
Wow. Just wow. I can't believe all of you. I leave you guys alone for ONE week, and THIS is what you get into?
Principal Celestia told me everything, and you all should be ashamed. We were creating a special video to surprise you and celebrate us as Wondercolts, but now, I'm not even proud to be a Wondercolt. Why did it even matter why I went to the principal's office? Did it affect you? No! Instead of just respecting my privacy and letting me do this, all you did was cause trouble for everyone.
Micro Chips, you embarrassed my dad and sent both of my parents into a frenzy of fear. Zephyr Breeze, you are NOT my boyfriend, and destroyed any chance you had at ever becoming my boyfriend (not that you had a chance to begin with). Trixie, because of your rumors, I was getting spammed with texts about my "relationship with Celestia" in the middle of the night! Diamond Tiara, you went way out of line because of jealousy. And Rarity, I can't believe you, one of my best friends, was on board with all of this! All of you, turning my secrets into a watch party? Seriously? That makes me sick! Canterlot High School, this project was for YOU, and you ruined it.
But I'm not the one who needs an apology the most. No, that "honor" goes to Principal Celestia. She trusted you, believed in you, loved you, and you let her down! I know she's chewing you out at the assembly as I'm typing this, but once it's over, and you serve whatever punishment she has coming your way, you owe her the biggest apology in the history of the world. Just... don't let Zephyr Breeze come up with it, since he clearly doesn't know his history.
Starting tomorrow, I'll be back in class, since my video project was cancelled. And instead of hearing rumors about ME or what I'M going to do, I better be hearing about how you're going to make this up to Principal Celestia. Because SHE deserves better.
Come on, team. Show us what it really means to be a Wondercolt.
To: Sunset Shimmer, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Twilight Sparkle
From: Rainbow Dash
Hey, girls. Sorry I haven't really been in contact with you lately. As I'm sure you've heard by now, I was working with Celestia to film a "Welcome to Canterlot High" video. It would've celebrated our current students as Wondercolts, and also would've been shown to future generations as a way to showcase how special our school is. That's why I said it was "good"! Except, now, it's not even going to happen.
I had to get taken out of class to review my script, revise some details, rehearse, and other stuff like that. And, at the climax of the video, I was going to give an improvised speech about how important friendship is at CHS. To make it as authentic as possible, I chose to separate myself from everyone for a week, just to see what life without friendship was like, and how having friends enhanced my life and made it better. I'm sorry I left you in the dark, but, as I'm sure Sci-Twi would agree, the experiment probably wouldn't have worked as well if you all had known.
Of course, the whole school scandal kind of ruined everything, but if there's one thing I learned while making the video, it's that you guys are the most AWESOME friends a girl could ever have! I felt so lonely without you! It sucked having no one to talk to or hang out with! But that's all over now. I'll be back in school tomorrow, and I can't wait to be friends with you again.
Thanks for being awesome and not hunting for "the truth". It means a lot to know I can trust you. Hopefully, the rest of our class will see the error of their ways soon.
You're the truest Wondercolts of them all.
Hmm. So... she couldn't have done this after school? Over the weekend? Yeah, this is Dash we're talking about, captain of all the sports, but this sort of surprise isn't exactly inconspicuous when it consumes this much of her class time.
In any case, I do wonder how everyone's going to try to make this up to Celestia. They have an awfully deep hole to climb out of.
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There's some more information about why Rainbow did this during class time in the next chapter. All will be revealed soon!
Wow. I feel so bad for Dash. That's gotta suck...
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Yeah she could have also not done the whole ghost all my friends ‘experiment’ separately from this project. Then she coulda just said something like “Yeah, I’m working on a cool surprise for the school. Keep it on the down-low, y’all.’” instead of communicating through vague grunts and hiding from everyone.
Celestia and dash should of been more discreet if they wanted to keep things secret. I mean calling 1 of the most well known student in school to your office multiple times to your office within a week without at least giving a reason why, what do they think would happen. Acourse the students will get suspicious, why wouldn't they, who ever heard of someone getting sent to the principal office that many times and stay there for so long missing classes like that. They could of been smart and made up some story to throw everyone off their back, but instead kept things to secretive that would drive anyone insane.
While the student body in general bears a ton of blame in this situation, Celestia and Rainbow Dash aren't completely innocent. How could either of them have thought Dash cutting herself off from her friends, not to mention the general student populace, without an explanation was a good idea? At the very least, she'd be hurting her friends' feelings by closing down communications.
Yeah, Luna should shoot off a text to her sister telling her how terrible this scheme was.
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Damn, now there’s more? I’m intrigued.
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Even why see hid behind a locker to hide from trixie, cause now that we know the truth that part confuse the crap out of me. What reason did see need to hide anyway? if see was just practicing her lines just hide the script, everyone already knows she's in the office so why hide herself? Also whats up with silver spoon?
Rainbow Dash, you probably need a rest after that.
Yeah, I don't know. Maybe the school wouldn't have descended into chaos if you hadn't made such a big deal about keeping things secret! Just say, "I'm working with Rainbow Dash on a special project, you'll see it when it's done." That would have fixed everything!
What happens next?
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You'll see in December!
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Well, it's January now....
Man, this was really a bummer.
After all the laughs, this chapter reveals just how messed up everyone was. They basically committed invasion of privacy, illegal surveillance, and slander against one of the most celebrated classmates.
I wonder how they'll make it up to Celestia and Rainbow.
Ah, man, I want to know more. What will happen?
To be fair, after the first three or four times "student is behaving suspiciously and avoiding their friends because somebody's playing mind games and probably getting ready to rule/destroy the world" becomes an actual thing which happens in your life, the lesson tends to stick that big surprises with days of buildup are not good things. I cannot entirely blame CHS for being gossip-heavy once knowing about the unexplained absences/the strange new kid/what's going on with the high-profile students who keep you safe at school becomes a survival measure. And it's actually reasonable a portion of the student body would panic at the revelation that the vice principal knew nothing about what her sister was doing. This could have been the first time the students were proactive enough to head off a movie's plotline at the pass... which is of course why there was no chance of the event meriting the response.
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...Well don't leave us in suspense!
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Wait what did Applejack do? The message never says.
I am pretty sure she wasn't involved with Zephyr Breeze. Details are important Rainbow.
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Principal Celestia mentioned that Rarity and Applejack are now arguing about this (which you will see more of in the upcoming chapters). Rainbow Dash isn't happy about that.
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That explains why she's not happy but I was actually talking about the fact that said email merely calls out the students for being nosy. Feels like Rainbow's response to Applejack should've been handled in a separate text, or referenced the conflicts that broke out between students because of this fiasco. Of course Rainbow's angry and not thinking straight so that proberbly has something to do with it.
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Yeah, Dash is too mad to send out individualized messages to everyone who did her wrong. She still wants them all to know how upset she is, though, and venting her frustrations in a group message accomplishes just that.
Pinkie Pie wanted to save the Rainbow from Celestia with balloons... And she was one of those who stayed calm?
But I like Luna. It's both funny and cool.
I feel Vinyl and Derpy would also respect Rainbow's privacy, knowing their character's, as Vinyl usually keeps to herself a lot and Derpy's a genuinely pleasant girl, but everyone else who did try to peer into Rainbow's privacy.....