Tantabus, Chapter 5 (Applejack) · 5:36am Jan 6th, 2016
Tantabus
4 - Applejack
September 23rd, 9:20 am
Dear Diary,
I’m taking the time while the assembly is getting together to get down my thoughts on today so far.
I was on the other side of campus when the explosion went off, so I can’t offer an eye-witness account. Violet Blurr in First Period said that some Crystal Prep students blew up the Wondercolts statue as a prank, but I was suspicious—it’s not only three months too early for that kind of prank, but also way more serious than anything I’ve ever heard them do.
Besides, I’ve blown up a stump or two with dynamite, and what I heard was not dynamite. Matter of fact, I don’t know what it was that I heard!
9:50 am
No, this is all wrong. Rainbow Dash is innocent, and that snake Sunset Shimmer set her up, I just know it!
Now don’t get me wrong, Diary. Rainbow Dash is still a low-down dirty liar, who I would sooner flip over a set of goalposts with my bare hands before I’d trust her to tell me the name of the guy on the one dollar bill. I’ve spent a gallon of ink and a ton of paper telling you everything that Rainbow Dash is, Diary. But I never called her a thief, and I never said that she’d betray CHS’ honor for petty cash, because I knew in my heart that those things were just not her. And that’s how I know that she was set up.
As for Sunset Shimmer? Well, the plan went down perfectly, didn’t it, right down to her own team turning on her? Ain’t nobody in this school that could pull off a complete disgrace of a rival better than her, and Rainbow did manage to get some good barbs against Sunset in that time she was interviewed by the local news for coming in second at the Four-County Track Championship. If anything, Sunset was being unusually quiet in how long she waited before springing her trap.
Look at me, analyzing her trickery like I was proud of it or something!
No, this is just too far. Blowing up the Wondercolts statue for no other reason than a cover for your plan to arrest somebody you don’t like? That’s...well, it’s evil, is what it is. And I’m not going to stand for it.
Sunset Shimmer has been haunting this school like a bad ghost, and it’s time that she be exorcised. And it looks like I’m going to have to be the girl to perform the ceremony. This I swear.
It’s just too bad that I have no idea how I’m going to carry out that promise I just made.
11:00 am
Sunset disappeared almost immediately after the assembly let out.
I overheard Pinkie Pie trying to gather a group to visit Rainbow Dash in juvenile detention. I told her that I believed in Rainbow’s innocence, and of my promise to take Sunset Shimmer down for framing her.
Pinkie Pie told me two things then for which I will be forever grateful. First, she said that if I wanted to uncover the truth behind Sunset’s lies, then I would need a private investigator—she even volunteered for the job herself, but...well, Diary, we know all too well how much Pinkie prefers a good story to the truth. I need to find somebody more clever than Sunset Shimmer, which is no easy proposition. The other thing Pinkie Pie told me was that if I wanted to dig up Sunset’s secrets, then I needed to throw her off her guard, and there was no better way of doing that than by declaring myself for Fall Formal Princess. Rarity, who had joined the Rainbow Dash-visiting group, agreed that doing that would drive Sunset crazy, but I had better get that evidence fast, before she destroyed my reputation like she destroyed Rarity’s. Of course, I told her that I didn’t have nearly as much of a vulnerable reputation now as Rarity did a year ago.
Oh, and Rarity mentioned that she was looking for Fluttershy, who she hadn’t seen since before the bombing. I hadn’t seen her either.
I’m pretty sure that this was the first time that Pinkie Pie, Rarity and myself had had a decent conversation in years.
With Rarity’s help, we put together a poster: a big old picture of me smiling, with my name above it and “For Fall Formal Princess” below it.
At the last moment, Rarity added “A simple country girl”, in quotes.
And the one who said that quote when referring to me, over and over again? A Miss Sunset Shimmer.
We put the poster where she’d be sure to see it the moment she comes back to school tomorrow morning.
If only I could see the look on her face.
12:30 pm
Yup, still here at Canterlot High.
I managed to stay one step ahead of the Principal and Vice Principal when they closed down the school—locked it up with a chain and padlock, as the electronic security system was on the blink—so I’d have some chance to dig up some dirt on Sunset Shimmer.
I had absolutely no clue what I was doing. In fact, I was nearly caught when I got a text, as I had forgotten to turn off the alarm on my phone. The message was from somebody calling themselves “Shredder”, telling me to check out the email address equunifallpri87@searcher.org. I’ll find out tomorrow if that was a legitimate tip from an anonymous source or just a prank.
Meanwhile, Mac took Bloom and the girls over to Twist’s birthday party in the truck, which is what I was supposed to be doing before this whole “overthrow Sunset” thing got started. The party was supposed to start at 3 and end at 6, but with the school shutdown, everything was pushed back three hours, so that means I’ve got a good two hours to find some kind of evidence before I go.
Maybe I’ll see if I can get a look in the crater at the front of the school, before those construction people fill it up.
1:00 pm
Well, wouldn’t you know it—my prayers have been answered! I asked for somebody smarter than Sunset to help me uncover her wrongs, and that is exactly what I’ve got.
I wrote you before, Diary, that I wanted to look in the crater left behind by the explosion. Well, Mr. Crates wouldn’t let me go down there, but I got a look from the edge, and something about the way the dirt down there was clumping up looked wrong. Didn’t get more than a look, though, because one of the workers noticed that a stripe on his badge had turned a bright purple.
Mr. Crates cleared the whole area when he heard that, since a “purple stripe” is supposed to mean that you were being fried by radiation something fierce. He called up his “science advisor” on his cell once we all got into shop class (didn’t know they built the walls out of lead during the 50’s to act as an atomic war shelter—no wonder I never had any bars in there), and I was able to overhear a fun little conversation between the two of them. (He had to hold the phone at arm’s length outside the window of the classroom on the opposite side from the crater in order to make the call.) For one thing, this “advisor” sounded like she was younger than I am, and second, according to her we should have passed out or something if the radiation was as bad as the badge said. And then Mr. Crate threw her for a loop when he said that the badge had gone back to normal.
Radiation badges are never supposed to go back to normal after they change color. It’s some sort of safety thing.
So she had that poor worker parade back and forth between the crater and the side of the building where we were hiding, to prove that the badge’s color was going back and forth, even though it wasn’t supposed to. Only then would she put down her homework to see things for herself.
Yeah, that’s right—homework. The science expert was as young as me after all. Her name was Twilight Sparkle, and she goes to Crystal Prep. She took one look at the badge and came up with a long scientific explanation of what was going on (short version: “it’s not radiation at all”), then started hemming and hawing at the dirt in the crater. I knew instantly that this was the investigator I was looking for, and offered to hire her to investigate Sunset. She spent less than a minute looking around the campus, then plucked one of the security cameras off the wall and screwed open the case to reveal a little plate with the words “Property of Sunset Shimmer” etched into it. Can you imagine? Sunset’s got her own security network sitting alongside the school’s, so she can watch everything that happens! Twilight Sparkle was so impressed by Sunset’s nerve that she agreed to take the assignment right then and there. I gave her that email address I got earlier and sent her on her way.
I’ve got high hopes now that between Twilight and myself, we can dig up something big enough to stop Sunset once and for all. That is, assuming that she doesn’t go off the deep end first—she’s got some frankly impossible explanations for what happened when the statue blew up.
I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe in magic—I don’t care what impossible shape the Canterhorn is, or who won what battle a thousand years ago. Magic is a bunch of hooey.
3:02 pm
Felt a faint earthquake. I’ve got no idea if it’s connected to anything else that happened today.
Are you sure you won't make a full story of this because it is quite fun!
I do love seeing villains get hoisted by their own petards or overthrown by those they thought were beneath their notice. Granted, Sunset probably has much bigger concerns right now, but seeing the human main cast band together like this makes me very happy.
Also, for all of Sunset's skill at covering her tracks, that nameplate seems awfully short-sighted. I suppose she thought the cameras hiding in plain sight would keep anyone from actually looking.