//------------------------------// // 4. Battle of the Bands! // Story: Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship // by Danieru //------------------------------// The battle of the Bands has officially started. Sixteen bands ended up competing in this tournament-style battle. Each time, two bands would compete against each other. Principal Celestia, Vice Principal Luna, as well as the audience would decide which band would win. The one that looses will drop out in the competition and the winner goes to the next round. So in order to win the whole thing, one band has to win four times. Star Twinkle and the Rainbooms however, didn't care about winning, with maybe the exception of Rainbow Dash. All that they needed to do was to stop the Sirens, who at this point, had everyone under their spell, except Star Twinkle and his friends. The only thing they needed to do was to use a counterspell to free everyone again. Unfortunately, Twilight had no counterspell ready yet and she still needed a lot more time from the looks of it. Since the counterspell needed to be heard by everyone in order to cancel the Sirens spell, the Rainbooms needed to use it at the Battle of the Bands event, where all students would end up being eventually. It needed to work on the first time they decided to use it or else the Sirens would get suspicious of their plan. This meant that the Rainbooms had to buy more time for her, meaning that they had to stay in the competition for as long as possible, winning against everyone who they were facing. Luckily, not every band in the competition seemed to be too much of a threat to the Rainbooms. One of the "bands" was on stage already and tried their best to impress everyone. The Rainbooms were there too backstage and couldn't help but feel weird listening to this performance. "And here I thought our practice earlier this day was bad..." Star Twinkle thought while he listened to the current performance. The contestants that were playing right now consisted of Snips and Snails, who decided to take a more hip approach with their music. Both of them were wearing hoodies, long necklaces, sunglasses, and long pants, fitting for the music that they were doing right now if one could even call it music. "Aw, yeah! Snips and Snails indahouse, yo! They call me MC Snips and that ain't no lie My favorite food is like pumpkin pie I'm DJ Snazzy Snails, I like whales When I go to the beach, I always bring my pails," Those were only a few of the brilliant lyrics that those two came up with, accompanied by some poor beatboxing from both of them. At first, Star Twinkle thought he was the only one who didn't like it because he was not too much into this kind of music but as soon as he looked over to the audience, behind the curtain and saw the reactions of everyone else, he was sure that this was not a good performance at all. However, both Snips and Snails didn't seem to notice that and just continued without a care. "Everybody knows my favorite color is orange My rhymes are so fly, they're better than... um... Than an orange, yo! Yeah! Yeah! Represent!" ... "What do we... What do we do now?" Snips asked in the middle of the song. "Get off the stage, I'd like to leave right now," Snails replied. The two seemed to realized that no one in the audience was really enjoying this "song" and tried to do their best to end it now. "Bam! That just happened!" Snips said before he stood there back to back with Snails. "Aw, yeah! We out!" Snails added. "Snips and Snails outta here!" They both said before they took their mics and straight out let them drop on the ground, causing the whole gym to be filled with a painful sound as soon as they hit the ground. Everyone quickly covered their ears as soon a that happened. "As if listening to their music wasn't painful enough," Star Twinkle said after the screeching sound in his ears gone. Needless to say, there was not much cheering in the audience for those two. Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna also didn't seem too impressed. "Please do not drop the mics," Principal Celestia said without a single hint in her voice that she was enjoying this performance. Still, Snips and Snails walked off the stage as if they have just won the whole thing. They even went so far to advise the Rainbooms to give up while they walked past them, and advise that wasn't even remotely taken seriously by any of them. "Least we know one group who won't stand in the way of us gettin' to the finals," Applejack straight out said as soon as the two walked past her. Radiant Blast, however, was not sure why Applejack said that. "I thought they weren't too bad," he casually said, much to everyone's surprise. He was actually the only one of the group who was moving his head up and down and actually enjoyed the music while the two of them were on stage. But the others didn't see much competition in those two and focused on their own performance, which was about to start any minute now. "How about we show them how real music sounds like?" Star Twinkle said. Rainbow Dash quickly picked up on those words. "Yeah! Let's get ready to rock!" She said, causing the group to get all hyped up for their performance. "Wait!" Pinkie Pie then suddenly said. "Where's Rarity?" She asked, making everyone realize that now as well. "Oh! Here! I'm here!" Rarity said while panting a little. It seemed as if Rarity was getting something before the performance started and as soon as she showed herself, everyone knew what. She stood there wearing a rather unique and strange-looking costume. She was wearing a white top and a long purple skirt, which were actually the only things that looked normal but over her white top, she was wearing a light brown jacket with diamonds all over it. The weirdest part about this outfit though was that it had metallic pieces hanging from her jacket. The first thing that came into Star Twinkle's mind was that she looked like a living wind bell. Rarity was obviously the only one who thought that this outfit was looking fabulous. "We will be performing in front of an audience. I'm not going to wear something fabulous?" She said while she proudly presented this outfit in front of everyone. The group was not really understanding what exactly was fabulous about this outfit and just decided to ignore it. They had to focus on winning this round after all. Twilight decided to remember everyone about their true goal. "Remember, we have to be good enough to make it through but not so good we let the sirens see the magic within us. They could realize we plan to use it against them," So far the group did a really bad job of getting this magic to work but it can't be too bad to hold back a little more. The Rainbooms were a good band, with or without magic so that would hopefully not too much of a problem. "Got it!" Rainbow Dash replied. Be cool enough to win, but not so cool that we end up showing off the whole ears and tails and rainbows thing. Sooo... about twenty percent less cool," Rainbow Dash figured. After all that was settled, the group went up to the stage and left only Radiant Blast and Sunset Shimmer who were waiting backstage. "You think they will make it through the first round?" Radiant Blast asked. "I'm sure they'll be fine," Sunset Shimmer replied confidently. As soon as Star Twinkle walked on the stage, he began to get a little nervous. He would have never stepped on the stage if his friends weren't with him right now. He just had to get used to it, however, since he had to be on stage sooner a later if he wanted to help them activate the counter-spell. Things didn't make it any better once he saw how most of the audience consisted of the bands that they had to go up against, all of them glaring at him and the rest of the Rainbooms. But despite being glared at from all sides, getting through the first round is what they had to make sure of now so they couldn't afford to get intimidated. As soon as they were ready, they started the song. "One! Two!" Pinkie Pie said as a signal for everybody to start. And so the song began. Rainbow Dash played the electric guitar, Applejack the bass, Rarity the keytar, Fluttershy the tambourine, Pinkie Pie was on the drums and "We've just got the day to get ready And there's only so much time to lose Because tonight, yeah, we're here to party So let's think of something fun to do," Needless to say, the song sounded good. There was also no indication of magic being released so everything was going according to plan, much to Radiant Blast's and Sunset Shimmer's relief. "See? Nothing to worry about," Sunset Shimmer said. Unfortunately, things changed pretty quickly. "Sunset! There!" Radiant Blast whispered to her while he pointed at the ceiling above the stage. One band was straight out trying to sabotage the Rainbooms. They used some strings with magnets at the end of them and went right for Rarity and her costume which was full of metallic objects. As soon as the magnets got stuck to her, she was flying all over the stage. The Rainbooms were busy playing the song but they also noticed that something strange was going on. Of course, they couldn't stop in the middle of the song so all they could do was to keep going as if everything was normal. "We don't know (we don't know) what's gonna happen We just know (we just know) it's gonna feel right All our friends are here And it's time to ignite the lights! Shake your tail 'cause we're here to have a party tonight Shake your tail, shake your tail Shake your tail 'cause we're here to have a party tonight Shake your tail, shake your tail," They continued to sing while the band on top of the stage kept continuing their sabotage while laughing at the demise of the Rainbooms. It was Photo Finish and her band who were responsible for this. They probably tried to raise their chances to win by ruining the Rainbooms performance. "Hey!" Radiant Blast then said, much to their surprise. He climbed up the railing in order to stop all this and ran towards the three girls who were sabotaging the Rainbooms. As soon as they saw him charging at them, they began to run away. However, they didn't let go of the strings, much to Rarity's dislike who continued to fly all over the place because of the chase above her. As if things weren't bad enough on and above the stage, the place in front of the stage didn't look better as well. The audience mostly consisted of the bands that were competing against the Rainbooms and since they were all under the spell of the Dazzlings, everyone only cared about their own victory and didn't mind the performance of the Rainbooms. Pinkie Pie noticed the lack of cheer in the crowd and decided to do something about it. She kicked one of her drums and confetti flew right up in the air, which slowly rained down on the Rainbooms. It was an attempt of her to make the performance look a little better. However, that miserably fired back as soon as Twilight accidentally swallowed a piece of confetti while she was singing. It was impossible for her to continue singing since she was coughing heavily but thankfully, Star Twinkle noticed that and smacked her with on the back and Twilight managed to spit it out shortly after. Still, this was pretty embarrassing and Twilight was blushing because of it. She just had to continue with the song. Radiant Blast stopped his chase as soon as he saw some things going wrong down on the stage. He knew that he had to do something to help but chasing Photo Finish didn't seem to help much since Rarity was still stuck on the magnets and flew all over the stage, knocking stuff over. After he took a moment to see where Photo Finish and the other two girls went to, he saw Snips and Snails walking on the railing as well, ready to sabotage the Rainbooms. The two played around with the lights and directed right at Fluttershy. Being the shy person she was, she quickly ran away from the spotlight so that no one would look at her. "Hey!" Radiant Blast said before he walked over to Snips and Snails to stop them but as soon as he ran after them, Photo Finish and her band continued to ruin Rarity's part of the song. "Stop!" Radiant Blast said after he saw that and chased after the three again. It was a total mess. Radiant Blast couldn't stop both of the groups at once so all he could do was to walk back and forth. Things also didn't look better on stage. Fluttershy was running away from the light and Rarity flew all around the stage and even bumped into Star Twinkle for a moment. Twilight was doing the lead singer part so he figured that he should leave the song to her and did something to help Rarity out. He grabbed her arm and tried his best to pull the jacket away from the magnet that was stuck on her. Eventually, the arms of the jacket were ripped apart from the magnet, finally freeing Rarity. However, instead of being relieved or thankful, she was shocked about what happened to her precious jacket. Still, with all this going on on the stage, the band kept playing until the song was finished, which thankfully was about to happen any second now, despite Fluttershy hiding behind Pinkie Pie's drums and Rarity sitting on the ground, crying in embarrassment. "Shake your tail 'cause we're here to have a party tonight Shake your tail, shake your tail Shake your tail 'cause we're here to have a party tonight Shake your tail, shake your tail Shake your tail 'cause we're here to have a party tonight Shake your tail, shake your tail Shake your tail 'cause we're here to have a party tonight Shake your tail, shake your tail Shake your tail 'cause we're here to have a party tonight!" After the song was over, all that could be heard in the gym was the applaud of Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna. The Rainbooms walked off the stage without a word and filled with embarrassment. By now, Radiant Blast was also back on the ground again, being ashamed as well because he couldn't prevent everything that happened just now. Rarity was the one who had the hardest time getting over all this. "Ruined! Absolutely ruined!" She exclaimed while she cried in frustration, causing her make-up to run down her face. Applejack was upset by the outcome of this performance as well but instead of feeling bad about it, she decided to point her finger to someone else in this situation. "Rarity were you tryin' to make us lose out there?!" She said angrily. "Wh- Oh! This was not my fault! This was an act of sabotage!" Rarity protested offended. "She's right!" Radiant Blast interrupted before the situation would escalate even further. "I tried to help but...well you know what happened..." he then said, blaming himself for the outcome of all this. But Applejack insisted that it was still mostly Rarity's fault. "Yeah, well, whoever did this couldn't have done this if Rarity didn't insist on dressin' like... like...this!" She said, referring to why Rarity was wearing those strange clothes in the first place. "We need to sound good! Is there some reason that concept seems to escape you?" The two of them kept getting at it and as if that wasn't bad enough, Rainbow Dash started to blame others now as well. "And what was with the confetti, Pinkie Pie? How am I supposed to rock if there's paper stuck in my frets?!" She said bothered. "It was pretty distracting..." Fluttershy added quietly. Pinkie Pie couldn't believe what she just heard. "Ugh! Says the girl who was running from a light the whole time! A light!" She exclaimed angrily. By now, Star Twinkle felt like the girls were getting a little too far with the finger-pointing. "Hey, you know how Fluttershy is when it comes to things like this," he said in order to defend Fluttershy before he looked over to Rainbow Dash. "And by the way, we don't need to rock because we still need to keep a low profile in front of the Dazzlings," he reminded Rainbow Dash. But Rainbow Dash didn't seem to be done with the blaming. "Yeah, and I'm pretty sure your little performance helped out there a lot..." "What?" Star Twinkle replied confused. "She's right!" Applejack added. "Why did you just stopped singing in the middle of the song?" She asked. "I was trying to help Rarity!" Star Twinkle replied angrily. "Yeah, that's all good, but we can't just let one of our lead singers go off to do something else," Rainbow Dash added. Things got more and more out of hand and the group started to blame each other left and right, much to Twilight's Radiant Blast's and Sunset Shimmer's dislike. The later finally decided to speak up and reminded them of the important thing now. "You still sounded much better than most of the other bands. I'm sure you'll make it to the next round," she said. "She's right," Radiant Blast agreed. "Our goal was to reach the next round and I'm sure that you will pass!" He added, keeping a positive attitude despite everything that happened. "But it won't matter if you don't have that counter-spell ready," Sunset Shimmer said, causing Twilight to get nervous again, as soon as that was mentioned. "All you need is some more practice until you get the hang of it! Somewhere where the Sirens can't hear you," she advised. "Yes, and we keep an eye out for them!" Radiant Blast said with a grin on his face. That plan sounded really good for the rest of the group. They really needed to get that counter-spell to work as soon as possible without the Sirens knowing about all this. They couldn't afford to listen to the other bands and had to prepare as much as possible. Later, in the school hallway... Finding a place to practice was all good, but the problem was to find a place like that. The Sirens probably already got an eye on the Rainbooms so they had to find a secluded place. Twilight, of course, was scratching her head to find a place. "I don't think we should use a classroom so maybe..." but her sentence was cut short as soon as she accidentally bumped into Flash Sentry who was standing in front of her with his other band members. Embarrassed by this, Twilight started to blush. "We really need to stop bumping into each other like this," she said while chuckling nervously. But for some reason, Flash Sentry wasn't taking this little bump all too lightly. "Uh, you guys hear something?" He asked towards his band-mates while he turned his head around, completely ignoring Twilight. Twilight got really confused about this reaction. "I said, we have to stop—" "There it is again. So annoying," Flash Sentry interrupted in the middle of Twilight's sentence. "Why are you acting like this? I thought we were friends," Twilight asked confused after she saw hot Flash Sentry was treating her all of the sudden. Flash Sentry got angry all of a sudden and decided to explain what was bothering him so much. "Yeah, and then you decide to come back here just so you can beat me in the Battle of the Bands. I want this, Twilight, and you're trying to take it from me! Some friend," he said angrily before he turned around again and continued to ignore her. "That's not why—" Twilight was about to say but Applejack decided to let her ignore all this so that they could move on. "Come on, Twilight. We've got things to do," she said while she took Twilight's arm and pulled her with her. "I don't get it. Why is he acting like that all of the sudden," Twilight wondered before she actually started to feel bad about the words the Flash Sentry threw at her. Since Twilight seemed to have forgotten it in this very moment, Star Twinkle decided to refresh her memory. "Don't forget, everyone is under the Sirens spell. That's probably why he was acting like that," he explained. "Yeah...you're right," Twilight replied with a frown on her face. Noticing how Twilight was feeling at the moment, Star Twinkle put on a confident smile. "Don't worry, Twilight," he said while he grabbed her shoulder. "Once we defeat the Sirens, everyone will return to normal again," he said in order to cheer her up again. Twilight knew that this was true. She also knew that she had no time worrying about that now so she decided to forget it. "You're right!" She said with a confident smile on her face. Without the group noticing it, however, the Sirens only stood a few feet away from them and watched the whole scene. They most likely had something to do with this very scene, judging from the way how they laughed at the group's misery. Then suddenly, Principal Celestia's voice could be heard from the speakers of the school. "The next band to take the stage will be Trixie and the Illusions," she announced. This quickly caught the attention of the Sirens. "Better head back. We're supposed to go on after Trixie," Adagio Dazzle said before she led to the gym. While they were on their way back, however, two people blocked their path, ready to have a little talk with those three "You're never gonna get away with this," Sunset Shimmer said with a serious expression on her face while Radiant Blast stood next to her with a serious expression on his face as well. But despite those words, the Sirens didn't seem too much threatened and were quick to respond. "Why? Because you didn't?" Adagio Dazzle said as she walked closer to Sunset Shimmer before Radiant Blast took a few steps forward like some kind of signal that he wouldn't let her do anything suspicious. As soon as Adagio Dazzle realized that, her eyes wandered to Radiant Blast now. She was smiling and didn't seem threatened by him, however. "Oh, we know all about you two. You've got quite the reputation at Canterlot High," she then said. Sunset Shimmer got a little uncomfortable after she heard that "I've changed! I'm in a much better place now!" She replied. "Waiting in the wings while your friends have all the fun?" Immediately replied amused. Hearing that made Sunset Shimmer feel even more uncomfortable, so much that she didn't know what to say to this. Luckily, Radiant Blast was right next to her at this moment. "We are helping them too!" He said offended. "Even if we are not part of the band!" Adagio Dazzle, however, didn't believe this. "Oh, yes, you are all so tight. And yet... they didn't ask you to be in the band, didn't they?" She asked with a smirk on her face. "I mean, they had enough time to include you by now," she pointed out. "Probably afraid no one would want to see them play if they were in the group," Aria Blaze added. It was quite obvious that they only said those words to manipulate and discourage Sunset Shimmer, and both her and Radiant Blast were aware of that. But even knowing that, it didn't stop Sunset Shimmer to feel bad. "Too bad! So sad!" Sonata Dusk said cheerfully at Sunset Shimmer's demise. The three Sirens smiled and even started to laugh at how Sunset Shimmer took those words to hearts and began to feel really bad. Radiant Blast started to get really angry seeing how the three were enjoying all of this. "You all take that back!" Radiant Blast said angrily. "Don't act like as if you know anything about us!" Adagio Dazzle was again, not threatened. She looked over to Radiant Blast before she looked back at Sunset Shimmer with a smirk on her face. "It must be really nice to at least have one friend who always defends you. No matter what you do, he will always mindlessly side with you, even if the things that you do are wrong, am I right?" Those words seemed to strike hard into Sunset Shimmer's mind. Even though Radiant Blast was angry at the Sirens, he was more worried about Sunset Shimmer right now and how she was affected by all those words. "If it's any consolation, no one is going to remember you at all by the time we're done," Adagio Dazzle said before she walked away with the other two Sirens walking right behind her. The three were gone now and all that was left was a really sad Sunset Shimmer. Radiant Blast was really angry at the Sirens to cause her to be in this state. Still, Radiant Blast was trying his best to cheer her up. "Don't let their words get to you Sunset. They just try to manipulate you, just like everyone else," Sunset Shimmer rubbed her arm and looked away. "Yeah..." she said in a very unconvincing tone. "I better go and check up on the others...in case they need me..." she then said before she walked away. She couldn't even look at Radiant Blast at this very moment for some reason and she was clearly not in the condition to talk. Radiant Blast realized that it was all because of the Sirens, making him even angrier at them. Later at the gym... Without letting anyone know, Radiant Blast entered the gym to keep a close eye on Sirens while they were having their performance. He knew that each time when they were singing, people would get manipulated so he decided to watch their performance as well, to make sure that he and his friends were maybe prepared for what they were up against. "I should be alright. That Spell of them didn't affect me after all," he figured before he took a spot in the crowd to watch the performance. It didn't take long until the curtain opened and the three Sirens stepped forward to start their song. "Oh-whoa-oh, oh-whoa-oh You didn't know that you fell Oh-whoa-oh, oh-whoa-oh," It was a shame that those three were using their singing to manipulate others since they were actually really good singers. Radiant Blast took a look around the gym and quickly noticed how everyone was listening to the Sirens while moving their heads with the music. It was like everyone was in trance. It was kinda scary to look at. But despite that behavior around him, Radiant Blast continued to listen to the Sirens. Adagio Dazzle was the lead singer of the group while the other two sang with her or provided background music. "Blindsided by the beat Clapping your hands, stomping your feet You didn't know that you fell Oh-whoa-oh-oh-oh Now you've fallen under our spell Oh-whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh," As soon as the song picked up, Radiant Blast could feel captivated by their singing as well It was beautiful to listen to, that much that he had to admit. He actually enjoyed listening to them. Probably even more than he liked to admit. But despite that, he continued to listen as the Sirens continued their song. "We've got the music, makes you move it Got the song that makes you lose it We say "jump", you say "how high?" Put your hands up to the sky We've got the music, makes you move it Got the song that makes you lose it We say "jump", you say "how high?" Put your hands up to the sky Oh-whoa-oh, oh-whoa-oh You didn't know that you fell Oh-whoa-oh, oh-whoa-oh Now that you're under our spell," It was really weird but for some reason, Radiant Blast felt as if listening to the Sirens was the most important thing in the world for him. He couldn't stop listening to them and slowly found himself in a trance. While the Sirens continued their song, they began to smile as soon as they noticed Radiant Blast listening to their music and being under their spell. "Under...your...spell..." were the last words that Radiant Blast said before he mindlessly continued to listen to the Sirens singing. To be continued...