//------------------------------// // Trouble Comes in Three's // Story: Equestria Girls - Lucky Chances // by TheOneAndOnlyRhyanSparks //------------------------------// It's been almost half a day without anything magical happening. Well, mostly that is. I was in a class earlier today and Trixie, who annoyingly refers to herself in third person a bit too much, tried to show up Fluttershy because she'd been talking to some of the birds, probably through some of her magic, but ended up with her solving a complicated maths question rather easily. I was honestly surprised at how smart she was, but also at how easily I understood it. Sometimes I wish I could just remember things, like how I can understand complex equations so easily, or how I can randomly say advanced words, uh, terminology. I'm still vaguely aware that I'm seeing a world that is cartoon like, but recently, it just feels like I fit in. At lunch, the eight of us, Rarity, me, FlutterShy, Sunset and the others all went to the shopping mall. I was surprised to hear that the last time they were here, the other Twilight's, um, pupil Starlight Glimmer had saved the day and befriended another girl. If I remember correctly, her name was Juniper Montage? I hope I got that right. Anyway, we're sitting at the three small tables that Sunset had said she'd run out of pages in her journal. "It's nice to be back here." I hear Rarity say on my left, as a hanging screen displays a music video with them and some other girls in it. "Ooh! We were actually doing that a couple of weeks ago actually, weren't we girls?" I watch as they all nod enthusiastically. "Oh, the premiere night was a bit of a surprise for the three of us, but at least we survived that horrible mirror thing!" The girls agreed cheerfully, as we started having our lunch together. I watch the video playing, wondering who the other girls are as I tuck into a tofu & salad salsa wrap. I notice a girl with some small, movie reel hair clips in her hair as she works across the hall from us, at a popcorn stall. "Hey Sunset," I say, getting her attention, as well as the rest of them. "Uh, who's that over there?" I point in the general direction, after looking to check again. "Oh, that's Juniper Montage." She replies, smiling. Pinkie gets up and goes over to her and I watch as they share a hug and come over. "Heya." She waves a bit nervously at us, as I notice a few looks from onlookers with scowls on their faces. "I'm still getting used to all the stares. But I'm not mad about you girls from before." I notice her looking between us all, making me look as well. "Is Starlight not with you?" "Not exactly." Sunset responds, closing her journal. "But right now, she's definitely 'out of town', so to speak." I wanted to know what she meant by that, but kept my mouth shut. "JUNIPER!" A static male voice calls out from a walkie talkie on her belt. "We have CUSTOMERS!" I notice her head droop a little, with a slightly angered look for a short moment, as she mimics his voice with a rudimentary hand that makes us laugh then says goodbye to us then as she heads back to the counter that she came from. A few minutes later, I hear a few raised voices as I see them all look with me towards the direction the voices came from. I couldn't help but somehow recognise the hair of one of the three girls as one is leaning over the counter that Juniper's working at. And once again, I get the feeling that I should know the other two, but I don't know why. "Oh, great," I heard Sunset mumble. "The Dazzlings are back." I look back at her in surprise, then remember the time trip I had with Dash to the past. I catch a knowing look from Dash herself as we look at each other so quickly, you'll blink and miss it. After partially overhearing them, I recognise Sonata is staying really quiet. Her head looks higher than normal, but as they head off, I get a slight chill down my back as I catch Sonata looking back at me briefly but do nothing. As they walk off, they appear to be arguing between themselves as we continue with our lunch. I remember seeing something in Sonata's eyes, like she was trying to think. From what I heard from Sunset, she's quite oblivious to a lot of things going on around her. As our lunch break is almost over, we start walking back to the school, I'm talking animatedly with Sunset and Twilight about how science and magic don't mix very well. It's very interesting. Even though I have amnesia, I seem to have some kind of connection to it. It's like whatever is giving me the feeling that I shouldn't be here could be part of the magic, but then again... Well, there's no other way to describe why. During our discussion, Pinkie Pie makes a funny comment on and makes us all laugh, including some teenager passing us snickers cheerfully from her comment. His style is familiar, like how they felt when I woke up about a few weeks ago, but I push the feeling aside when I see him create a balloon toy for a young girl who'd dropped her ice-cream. Coming up to the school, I notice the principal talking to a familiar blue haired girl from earlier. My friends just walk past her but I listen in a bit as we walked past as a group. Hopefully I can hear something decent at least. "...and I hope you'll enjoy your first days here soon, Sonata." I hear Principal Celestia say as we walk by. "I hope that at least some of the students will forgive you for what you did during our, uh, unexpected 'Battle of The Bands' earlier this year." Sonata simply nods in response. A slightly awkward and unhappy smile upon her downcast face. I didn't realise I'd stopped to look at the teenage girl, until Rarity somehow gracefully grabs my shoulder a bit harder than I would expect from her, making me jump in shock, but not too loudly. When I look around to Rarity, her face is one of slight disgust but somehow manages to hide it in a smile as Celestia turns around to introduce the former student of the school back. "Hello, girls." She says and holds Sonata's opposite shoulder from her side. "I hope you can forgive this young girl for her past mistakes. Even I didn't see that she and her friends had affected Vice Principal Luna and I as well." Before the seven girls I'm with could respond, with Rarity by my side and the others by the school's entrance, she leaves and heads inside. Probably heading for her office. I still see hidden but angry faces from my friends towards Sonata as we head inside. To be honest, I've heard what her sisters had been up to during the musical battle, but I had no idea how magical they were until that weird trip To the past. Coming back from my little daydream, I'm now sitting in class and just got asked a question by the teacher. I wasn't paying attention at all to the maths class, but my completely random guess was actually the correct answer. During the walk to my next class, going from maths to science, I'm walking alone when I spot two girls that I'd seen from lunch earlier today. From what I can remember, if you're not a student, you're not allowed on the school grounds unless given access to do so. Well, that's what I remember being told during my brief induction with Vice Principal Luna. After asking Sunset earlier about who they are, I guess these two are Aria Blaze and Adagio Dazzle. As I walk by them, I think the girl with the curly, orange hair sees me, but I don't think she has until she's grabbed my shoulder. I'm rudely turned around as I hold my backpack over my left shoulder. "Hey, handsome," Adagio says to me, in what I can only guess is flirtation. Her smirk is slightly unsettling for me. "I'm looking for a girl." "Pfft, I'm not." I hear Aria whisper behind her, making Adagio turn around. "She's better off without us anyway." She adds, mumbling as she shrugs and looks at her fingernails. I just stand there, watching the small bickering going on as students still rush to class. I'm about to turn away, when she loops her arm awkwardly around mine. "I promise it won't be long." She says, her awkward smirk of prowess, or whatever it is, as she starts to half drag me around. I'm now being dragged toward, then past my next class. I'm half-walking, half-dragged past a classroom as I recognise two friendly faces listening to the teacher, one of whom looks at me for the brief moment that I pass the door's window. Uh oh, I hope Rarity didn't see her dragging me. "Look," I say, getting out of her grasp and beyond arms reach. "I want to help you, but I don't know who your looking for." I play dumb, hoping she doesn't notice the glint I felt in my eyes as I figure out that the girl they're after is Sonata. "Oh, don't worry," Adagio says flirtatiously, with a bit of an angry look seeping through her 'charm' of flirting whilst leaning her hands on her hips. "She's got blue hair and can be a bit ... uh, slow from time to time." Aria makes a quiet but sassy comment of 'actually, like all the time' making herself smirk and looks sideways at me. That gave me shivers. I notice Adagio tenses up for no reason, until I turn around to who she's looking at. The corridor is now free of students, but I watch my Rarity stare down Adagio and Aria with something I could only sense as anger with a bit of jealousy. Wait, jealousy? I think silently as I decide to play half-dumb as I go to explain that I'm late for class. But before I could say anything, Rarity comes to my side and wraps an arm around me and leaning a bit as she starts talking in a rather rudely colourful to the two girls, with them arguing a bit before sharply turning me around and somewhat escorting me to my class. As we're walking away, I hear a quietly mischievous laugh, or more accurately, a soft cackle from behind. I get the sense that she knows something's up between us, but I hope I'm deeply wrong about that. "I'm sorry you had to hear all that, darling." She sighs, briefly leaning into my side a bit as we stand just past the door's window of my next class that I should be in. "I just wish they weren't so... so... evil." I feel her shiver a bit before she lifts her head up. "Oh well, I'll see you later sweetie. Meet us at Sugarcube Corner after school! I'll text you the directions." She adds as she quickly struts her way to class after checking around and quickly pecking my cheek. Walking into the class, I'm surprisingly seated next to Sonata. I never thought she'd be someone to actually pay attention to the class, but she's already got a full page of notes in her induction notebook. The rest of class went on as normal, with some practical study as well. Being paired with Sonata, I'm surprised that she can barely understand science, but knows enough to get by in our little experiment. But she behaved completely differently to how Sunset said she would. I somehow got the feeling thought that she wasn't thinking about tacos for once, which I just simply shook my head at for no reason. After the class, I walk out chatting somewhat animatedly with Sonata about the group assignment homework, but bump into Twilight and Spike. I say goodbye to Sonata, giving her a heads up about the two girls looking for her from earlier. Sonata looks like she hangs her head in shame, but I notice tears falling. With Twilight and I by her side, she begins to cry as she opens up to us completely, making Twilight and I feel sympathetic for her instead, well at least I hope Twilight does as much as I do now. Heading to SugarCube Corner, with me between Sonata and Twilight, I start to hear Sonata humming to herself. As the café Pinkie says is the best one around, I notice that we're early. Upon arriving at the little café, Twilight brings us over to the area that she's sat with the other girls before. I catch sight of a green haired guy entering as I sit down and Twilight immediately gets up to see him. Must be someone close or something. I think to myself as I sit down with Sonata, who somehow got two smoothies whilst I wasn't looking, and wait for the others as she gives me her second one. Unfortunately, just four minutes after Twilight introduces me to Timber Spruce, both our group of friends and the other girls who I saw with Sonata earlier arrive together. I can't help but think that there's going to be an argument and a falling out between the two groups, but as they either don't notice each other or are probably ignoring each other, my friends make their way over to our table with their usual cheerfulness, until they see Sonata. But as they're sitting down with us and take notice of a 'plus one' with them, Sonata stands up, shakily might I add, as I notice that Adagio and Aria are now coming over with angry faces. Probably after recognising her being with us. "Sonata!" Growled Adagio, coming our way slowly and getting some attention of nearby customers. "What are you doing with these girls? I thought I could trust you enough to avoid them!" Her voice raises a little bit as she gets angry at the poor girl with us, gaining more watchers in the process. "Yeah, what she said." Aria says, throwing her thumb and pointing at Adagio weakly, but with a strong tone in her voice. "But hey, at least you won't be such a buzzkill." I barely hear her add with a mumble and a smirk. But we're a bit taken aback as Sonata yells loud enough to make the rest of the café stare in our direction. "I'm... I-I-I'm f-fed up o-o-o-of being with y-yu-you two!!" Sonata yelled somewhat courageously, silencing both of the other sirens in the process. "I do-don't want to-to be a pa-part of your little par-party of fu-fun anym-anymore!" I can see her face just slightly from my position and she looks upset and angry. "I HA-HATE Y-YU-YOU!" I can't see her face, but from what I can hear, she's crying openly. Stepping backwards in shock, Adagio and Aria just share an upset, angered and somewhat disgusted face as they both take off and leave at the same time Sonata just plops down into the sofa between FlutterShy and I, leaning her face into and hiding it in her hands. We're all in shock, surprise and awe, well, with a bit of confusion too, at how the young girl had stood up for herself. To be honest, I'm feeling sorry for her after seeing how she felt around her sisters. "I'm so-so-sor-sorry fo-fo-fo-for ev-ev-everyth-th-thing!!" She wails quietly into her hands, as I get the feeling that she's now lost the trust of her sisters. Shocking my friends, I just scoot a bit closer and offer a soothing rub to her back. I sense a feeling of praise and surprise around me, but I don't know where it's from once again, but I get the feeling that I know who it's aimed at. As if something magical happens, the girls all start trying to calm Sonata down with me. My friends have found a new friend who needs help... And also in need of a new 'family' too...