The morning after the Battle of the Bands, Fragment Hunter and the Rainbooms all gathered around the Wondercolt Statue to see Twilight off as she returned back to her home dimension. "Sure wish that you could stay longer, Twilight," Applejack said to her friend.
"Me too. But I have responsibilities in Equestria that I have to get back to. Its citizens need me," Twilight replied as she explained that she had to return to her world. As she said this, Pinkie was fooling around with the portal by poking it a little before sticking her head inside the gateway for a little bit. After a second or two, she pulled her head out and her hair was messed up a little and her eyes seemed unfocused. "But, now I can go through the portal whenever I need to. This isn't goodbye. It's just goodbye 'til next time," Twilight reassured her friends.
"That still doesn't help us find a way back home," Cereza mentioned.
"Yeah," Rua agreed. "I'd prefer not getting detention for missing Doctor Oobleck's History class again."
"Even if you did, we'd go to 'Magnolia's' for frozen yogurt anyway," Azalea said as she placed her hand on Rua's shoulder. All of a sudden, a rainbow-colored flash of light blinded everyone and the two girls were gone. Everyone was shocked by what happened, but Rua and Azalea reappeared after a few seconds in a similar flash with two cups of frozen yogurt in hand. "GUYS!!! I think that blast had some weird side-effect on us," Azalea exclaimed.
"One second, we were here. The next, we ended up in Magnolia's with nobody noticing us warp in! We spent the next few minutes getting something to calm our nerves before we thought of you guys being stuck here. Now, we're back at this courtyard," Rua said in disbelief. "How did we do that?!"
Twilight and Sunset Shimmer thought it over for a minute before coming up with a hypothesis. "Maybe you all gained Equestrian Magic when we blasted the stage and hit the Dazzlings? It probably upgraded your natural abilities or at least allows you to travel between Remnant and this world because of how the portal originally brought you here despite it being closed before I arrived to help," Twilight theorized.
"Well, it's either that or lazy writing," Pinkie said as she leaned into view from beside Sunset Shimmer. "Either way, we'll get to see you guys whenever you want, too," she exclaimed as she hugged Slate and Azalea tightly.
"Well, I guess it's goodbye until next time for all of us," Twilight said as she looked at the teenagers in front of her. "Ready, Spike," she said as she looked down at her assistant.
"Ready," Spike declared as he and Twilight walked through the portal to return home.
The Rainbooms turned to Fragment Hunter and smiled. "Well, I guess that you should be heading off now, huh," Rainbow Dash said.
"We'll probably visit sooner than later," Sunset Blaze mentioned. "We'd love to show you Remnant's controlled areas, too if we can bring you. But, we should probably focus on figuring out how well we can get back to Beacon and back."
"It'll be fun to see you guys around again," Applejack said as she tipped her hat to Fragment Hunter.
"And I would love to see what other kind of fashion styles are in Remnant," Rarity swooned.
"Don't forget about us," Fluttershy said as she waved goodbye.
"Like we would forget you girls," Silver said with a smirk.
As Fragment Hunter grouped together, they soon warped away in a flash of rainbow-colored light. The Rainbooms smiled at who they just met and what they all did over the course of a few days. "Well, I'm beat," Rainbow exclaimed as she stretched her arms. "Let's get some rest and play some more music for fun tomorrow."
"I couldn't agree with you more," Sunset Shimmer replied as she yawned. "I feel like the next few weeks are going to be better now."
One afternoon, the Rainbooms were setting up their equipment to play on the amphitheater stage for a rehearsal. DJ Pon-3 was helping as she adjusted the sound system. And while everyone was tuning their instruments or setting up microphones, Sunset Shimmer was sitting down in front of the DJ booth with her old journal in her hands and wrote to Twilight.
'Dear Princess Twilight,
Missing you already and I hope that you'll be back soon. Things are already looking up for me at Canterlot High. After we broke the Dazzlings' spell over the school, everyone's been acting much more friendly to me and have even been helping me and the girls out from time to time. I guess that it's easier to forgive someone that used to be at your throat and acted like a jerk when you've made the same mistakes. But, I know that I still have a lot to learn about friendship. Hope that you don't mind if I write to you for advice when I need it.
Your friend, Sunset Shimmer.'
As Sunset finished writing, she closed the book and put it away before she saw a flash of rainbow-colored light. The Rainbooms saw Fragment Hunter was in the stands of the amphitheater waving to the band as they came for a visit. After waving back, Rainbow Dash turned to Sunset Shimmer with her guitar in her hands. "You ready or what," the lead guitarist asked.
Sunset Shimmer got her guitar and was ready for rehearsal as she went to join her friends. Pinkie started the song by hitting her drumsticks together and counted off. "One! Two! Three! Four!"
Once upon a time
You came into my world and made the stars align
Now I can see the signs
You pick me up when I get down so I can shine
Shine like rainbows
Shine like rainbows
Friends, you are in my life
And you can count on me to be there by your side
And when the music comes alive
We sing our songs to lift us up so we can shine
And the sound that we hear in our hearts
Makes a crescendo
And the light that ignites in the dark
It makes us all glow
And shine like rainbows
We shine like rainbows
Together we stand
As the rain begins to fall
And holdin' our heads up high
As the sun shines through it all
And the sound that we hear in our hearts
Makes a crescendo
And the light that ignites in the dark
It makes us all glow
And shine like rainbows
We shine like rainbows
Shine like rainbows
We shine like rainbows
We shine like rainbows
The new audience applauded the performance and joined the Rainbooms on the stage. "That song was beautiful," Celadon complimented.
"Who wrote it," Vinyl asked.
"Actually, me and Fluttershy wrote it together," Rainbow Dash said. Fluttershy beamed at the mention of another song she wrote got the credit it deserved. Azalea smiled and hugged Fluttershy in happiness. "So, why are you here today," Rainbow Dash asked.
"Just wanted to visit. Maybe we could play a song or two with you guys," Sunset Blaze said as she went back to the stands and grabbed a guitar she brought with her. "We'll do 'Let's Just Live' to start," Sunset suggested as everyone else grabbed their own instruments or borrowed some from the Rainbooms. The members of Fragment Hunter began to play and the two bands had a great time for the duration of Fragment Hunter's visit, not knowing that someone was investigating the events of the Battle of the Bands.
In a lab, a seismograph was printing out its readings and a purple hand tore it off to take a better look at it. After seeing the results, the paper was pinned to a board that had several other notes and pictures on it. Pieces of string were pinned to the board as well to show what notes and observations matched to a specific point of interest. Following the board's notes, it was revealed that a picture of Canterlot High was literally at the center of it all.
Stepping back to look over the board again, the purple-skinned girl who placed the paper was wearing a lab coat, her multi-shaded purple hair was a mess, and she wore glasses. However, she was completely identical to Princess Twilight Sparkle in looks and had the same voice as her. "There's no doubt about it, Spike," she said to her dog that was eating a bowl of treats behind her. "There's definitely something strange going on at that school..."
Spike only barked in reply as Twilight was deep in thought. "I need to go there personally to get some new readings," she mentioned to her dog. "And I should try to find out more about these people that showed up there," she said as she looked at a few pictures of Fragment Hunter. "Something doesn't seem right about them. I need to learn more about them and Canterlot High, Spike."