The Battle of the Bands continued...
One band after another dropped out of the competition. Luckily, the Rainbooms were not one of them. During the whole competition, the goal remained the same for Star Twinkle and his friends. Twilight still needed to complete the counter-spell that would end the spell of the Sirens, who pretty much had everyone except the Rainbooms under their control.
Still, everyone believed that Twilight would manage to get the spell ready in time and kept playing good enough to make it through every round but not too good so that they would show their magic in front of the Sirens, who were, of course, watching all the performances of the Rainbooms. They couldn't afford to let them know about their plan to use a counter-spell against them so they had to keep the magic inside until the finals.
All of that worked perfectly so far.
There are only two more rounds to go for the Rainbooms and only three bands remained in the competition. One, of course, was the Rainbooms who only had to deal with one more band to reach the finals and that was Trixie's band, which are called "Trixie and the Illusions". The third band, which already reached the finals, were the Dazzlings.
This all meant that there were two chances left for the Rainbooms to use that counter-spell and the next round was about to begin in a few minutes, meaning that it was all getting really close. But despite that, everyone was in high spirits and was not worried at all. Star Twinkle and the others all believed that Twilight would end up getting the spell done by the finals, much to her discomfort. All they could do now was to wait for Trixie's band to finish their song so that they could go up on stage.
The girls were all patiently waiting but Star Twinkle was looking all over the place and was wondering why one of them was still missing.
"Where is Radiant Blast? Shouldn't he be here by now?" Star Twinkle asked confused, mainly directed towards Sunset Shimmer.
The answer that he received, however, was not what he expected.
"Don't know...not like it matters if he is here or not anyway," she said with a frown on her face, not even bothering to look at Star Twinkle.
"What?" Star Twinkle replied confused. "Where was that coming from?" He asked.
Sunset Shimmer sighed. "It's nothing, I was just thinking out loud," she said with crossed arms and a frown on her face.
Seeing this behavior only worried Star Twinkle more. "Is something wrong?" He then asked in his concern.
Sunset Shimmer realized that she probably couldn't hide it from Star Twinkle once he decided to poke in further so she just went out with what was bothering her.
"I'm just thinking about my and Radiant Blast's role in all of this," she said with a frown on her face.
"Your role?" Star Twinkle asked confused.
"Yes," Sunset Shimmer replied. "Twilight is coming up with the counter-spell and the rest of you try your best to buy her some more time and play in the band to activate the magic. But I and Radiant Blast are just standing on the sidelines and do nothing,"
This all sounded all too familiar to Star Twinkle. "So you are feeling left out?" He guessed.
Judging from Sunset Shimmer's surprised reaction, it seemed as if he hit the nail on point. "Yeah, maybe," she replied, even though it was obvious for him that this was the case.
The worried expression on Star Twinkle turned into a smile and he grabbed Sunset Shimmer's shoulder before he said some comforting words to her. "Listen, I know exactly how you feel right now," he said. He could swear that Sunset Shimmer was not believing him so he continued further.
"I am well aware that I can be a little dense sometimes and that Sunset Shimmer was usually the one who took charge of the situation back then but I know that...me being around helped her as well! Just like how you being around Twilight always helps her out," Star Twinkle said.
Those words kinda confused Sunset Shimmer, especially since Star Twinkle was talking about her as if she was not present. "Huh?" Was the only thing she could reply after those words.
Star Twinkle then explained. "Radiant Blast said that to me," he said with a grin on his face. "He always knew that he was the guy who was right next to you and that the things he did, were minor compared to yours but he still stuck with you in case he was needed,"
Suddenly, Sunset Shimmer understood and began to smile as well. "Yeah, that sounds like him," she said. However, there was still one thing that bothered her. "But the things I did were horrible," she said with a frown forming on her face again.
"I'm not saying that trying to take over the school and Equestria was a good thing," Star Twinkle replied. "But the fact that Radiant Blast even helped you to archive that should prove enough that he is a good friend,"
Hearing that made, Sunset Shimmer think back about the words that the Sirens said to her. "I don't know. No matter what I do, he will always have my back. I don't know if I really want that. What if I return to do more evil stuff? Will he mindlessly support me again?" She questioned.
"Nope, not mindless," Star Twinkle quickly responded confidently, much to Sunset Shimmer's surprise. "Friends are also there to tell you when you cross the line. Remember when you were about to crush the portal to Equestria? Remember who stopped you in the last moment?" And again, the expression on Sunset Shimmer's face changed from a from to a smile again. If there was someone who knew Radiant Blast best than it was her after all. "He is a good guy, a little naive and dense, but a good guy. And if he was here, then he would be happy to just part of all of this even if the things that he contributes are pretty small,"
"How can you be so sure?" Sunset Shimmer asked.
But Star Twinkle had an easy answer ready. "Because I feel the same way most of the time," he said with a grin on his face. "I'll do what I can and that is all there is to it. I used to think that I am pathetic for not being able to do, what I thought isn't enough, but in the end, that didn't help me out either. Every little thing can help, no matter how small it may be,"
Sunset Shimmer was kinda surprised to hear those kinds of words from Star Twinkle but she was happy to hear them regardless. "You really believe this?" She asked once more as a kind of confirmation but then she remembered where she got her doubts from in the first place. It was the Sirens. She immediately got angry and blamed them for getting her thoughts clouded like this. "No! You're right!" She then said determinedly. "I believe in Radiant Blast and I'm sure that if he was here, he would say that everything is fine, the way it is!"
Star Twinkle was happy to hear that and that he was able to cheer up Sunset Shimmer a little. However, the more they talked about Radiant Blast, the more one thing worried him. "Speaking of him, where is he?" He said with some frustration in his voice.
Rainbow Dash overheard those words but she didn't seem to worry. "Wherever he is, he will miss another awesome performance by my band if he doesn't hurry," she said, confidently to win the next round without a problem.
"Our band!" Applejack corrected yet again angrily but Rainbow Dash ignored that.
In the middle of that, Fluttershy decided to address something that was really important to her. "Um, I was just wondering. We haven't played any of my songs yet, and..."
But she was quickly interrupted by Rainbow Dash "It's the semifinals. We gotta do "Awesome As I Wanna Be"." she said.
Fluttershy, of course, was not too happy to hear that. "Don't know why I even asked..." she mumbled in a bothered tone.
Star Twinkle didn't really bother about that and mentioned the thing that was concerning him the most now. "Instead of worrying what song we will play, we should consider if we can play the counter-spell now," he said while he looked over to Twilight
But Twilight looked away embarrassed, giving everyone a clear sign that this was still not the case. The group was very understanding about that and didn't put more pressure on her. "Don't worry, Twilight," Applejack said. "Finals aren't until tonight. We'll get in a little more practice before we're supposed to hit the stage. We won't let you down!" She said, seeing the positive about all this. Ironically, those words actually made Twilight feel even more nervous.
The rest of the group agreed and were right behind Applejack's words. Twilight was really the only one who wasn't too happy to hear that. Like before, she seemed to be pressuring herself the most, making her more nervous.
"You won't let me down..." Twilight whispered under her breath quietly.
While the group continued to wait for Trixie and her band to finish their song, finally, Radiant Blast appeared and walked up to the group. "There you are Radiant!" Sunset Shimmer said relived after Radiant Blast finally appeared.
"Where have you been!?" Rainbow Dash said, not bothering to hide how annoyed she was by how late Radiant Blast was. "You almost missed how we were about to rock the next round!"
Whatever caused Radiant Blast to be this late, he did seem to get a little annoyed by Rainbow Dash's words. "Well, sorry okay? Maybe I had something important to take care of!?" He said with an unusually serious and almost hostile tone in his voice.
The group was definitely caught off guard by those words and looked at each other confused for a moment. Before they could pick up on Radiant Blast's strange behavior, however, cheering could be heard in the gym. It was looking as if Trixie and the Illusions were done playing, meaning that there were only minutes left until the Rainbooms had to go out there.
"Looks like it's our turn now," Star Twinkle figured.
Trixie and her two bandmates exited the stage and walked up to the Rainbooms. Being the overconfident person she was, Trixie didn't miss this chance to talk down on them before she left. "You're never gonna top that performance, "Rain-goons"." She said before she turned towards Twilight for a moment. "You shouldn't be allowed to when you have such a big advantage over the rest of us," she added.
"My superior guitar playing and off-the-charts awesome singing voice?" Rainbow Dash boasted, completely missing how Trixie was obviously not talking about her.
"Oh, don't be ridiculous," Trixie replied. "I mean her!" She said while she straight out pointed at Twilight now. "If you were really all that, Rainbow Dash, you wouldn't have needed to bring in some magical ringer to have half a chance. Everyone's talking about it,"
"Ha! Puh-leeze!" Rainbow Dash said. "I could win this thing as a solo act and everybody knows it!" She claimed confidently, much to everyone's dislike, who all felt a little offended by how Rainbow Dash was pretty much saying that she didn't need her friends at all.
Everyone remained silent and decided to ignore those words, except for Radiant Blast, who was clenching his teeth. "Yeah, sure you could," he said in a highly sarcastic voice, which was no unnoticed by Rainbow Dash, who turned around after hearing those words and glared at Radiant Blast because of it.
"See? I'm not the only one who thinks like that," Trixie said with a smile on her face. "Anyway, I don't have time to talk with you so...tata," she said before she suddenly, threw a smoke bomb at the ground, to make her disappearance look a little more stylish.
But all it did was making everyone cough because of the smoke and the only one who was surprised by all of that was Pinkie Pie. "She's gone!" Pinkie Pie said in shock.
"Um, no, she is over there," Star Twinkle then said while he pointed at Trixie who was hiding in obvious sight behind Pinkie Pie's drums.
"Oh," Pinkie Pie said, causing Trixie to run away embarrassed as soon as she was spotted.
The group didn't really know how to react to this encounter. Of course, they wouldn't stop playing because of Trixie's words so they just decided to ignore her. It was also not as if they had much time to worry about it since Principal Celestia was calling the Rainbooms on the stage already.
"Alright then, let's get this round over with," Star Twinkle said, causing the girls to reply in some cheers to pump themselves up.
"Knock 'em dead, Rainbooms!" Spike said in excitement while he waited next to Sunset Shimmer and Radiant Blast.
The latter one seemed not too happy for some reason. "They better win," he said while he clenched his teeth angrily.
By now, Sunset Shimmer was beginning to wonder if something was wrong with Radiant Blast. "Is something the matter? You are behaving a little...odd..."
Radiant Blast looked back at her. "Well, we can't afford to drop out of the competition after all this work,"
"Yes, but..." Sunset Shimmer started before she stopped herself from telling Radiant Blast what she had in mind and decided to focus on the performance of the Rainbooms.
The song that they were singing now is called "Awesome as I wanna be," which was a song that actually a big ego trip of a song dedicated to Rainbow Dash. Needless to say, singing a song that was all about Rainbow Dash was something that the group wasn't really looking forward to but it wasn't really like as if they were singing at all because, not surprisingly, Rainbow Dash did most of it.
"Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!
Awesome as I wanna be
Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!
Awesome as I wanna be
First you see me riding on a sonic boom
Got my guitar shreddin' up my latest tune
There is nothin' you can do to beat me
I'm so good that you can't defeat me
Yeah, I'm awesome, take caution
Watch out for me, I'm awesome as I wanna be
I'm awesome, take caution
Watch out for me, I'm awesome as I wanna be"
Rainbow Dash was really getting into this song but the rest of her friends were just rolling their eyes and played rather normal. In fact, Rainbow Dash seemed to try her best to be at the center of attention on the stage. She must have felt a little challenged after hearing those words from Trixie and Radiant Blast before and felt as if she had to prove everyone in the school wrong. Unfortunately, Rainbow Dash was getting a little ahead of herself.
Star Twinkle only provided some background singing and wasn't really busy so he quickly noticed something about Rainbow Dash that could ruin everything. Ears started to appear on Rainbow Dash's head. She was about to show the magic inside of her without realizing it herself. Of course, that is something that they couldn't afford to happen with the Sirens being somewhere in the crowd watching all of this.
Despite that, Rainbow Dash continued to play like there was no tomorrow, without noticing how she was about to ruin their whole plan. Star Twinkle and Twilight both didn't play an instrument right now and just did some singing but Twilight didn't seem to notice anything about Rainbow Dash so it was up to Star Twinkle to do something about it or at least let Rainbow Dash know what is happening right now.
He slowly moved towards Rainbow Dash without making it look too suspicious. He figured giving her some kind of sign would be enough to stop her. However, as soon as Star Twinkle was almost next to her, Sunset Shimmer charged right at Rainbow Dash, knocking her over and making her fall into the others, damaging some of the instruments and completely ruining the whole song and putting it to a stop.
All that was left was Sunset Shimmer standing in the middle of the stage while everyone in the audience stood there and looked at her. It was really embarrassing to have that song interrupted for everyone in the band but it must have been even more embarrassing for Sunset Shimmer.
And of course, since everyone was still under the spell of the Sirens, they quickly took advantage of this situation.
"Now that's the bad girl we love to hate!" Flash Sentry pointed out.
Soon words like "I knew she was still trouble" or "The real Sunset Shimmer is back" filled the room, much to Sunset Shimmer's demise.
"No. It isn't like that," Sunset Shimmer replied to all those accusations in an attempt to defend herself.
Whether what she was doing was good or bad, the damage was already done and the Rainbooms left the stage embarrassed, annoyed and frustrated. As soon as they were off the stage, Rainbow Dash instantly asked the most obvious question.
"What was that?!" She exclaimed angrily after this weird incident.
"You were showing them your magic. I-I didn't know what else to do," Sunset Shimmer explained.
No one was really happy about that answer."Close the curtains? Unplug her amp? Give us a chance to deal with the situation?" Rarity said, which all sounded like admittedly better solutions to this situation.
"I'm sorry, I just wanted to help," Sunset Shimmer replied in her frustration.
"Yeah, well, you didn't," Rainbow Dash replied angrily while glaring at Sunset Shimmer. "And thanks to you, we will now drop out of this competition!" She said, straight out blaming Sunset Shimmer now.
By now, Radiant Blast had enough of how Rainbow Dash was acting towards Sunset Shimmer and stepped up to defend her. "Hey! Stop blaming She tried to help to keep this whole plan alive! Something that was obviously not important to you!" He said angrily, much to Sunset Shimmer's discomfort. She knew that Radiant Blast would usually defend her but this time it almost looked as if he was ready to fight or something. It kinda worried her.
"Radiant is right!" Applejack agreed. "None of this would've happened if you weren't tryin' to show off – as usual," she pointed out, blaming Rainbow Dash for this outcome.
As if things weren't bad enough, Trixie appeared right next to the group and decided to pour even more salt into their wounds.
"Good show, "Rain-brooms"." She congratulated with an amused tone in her voice. "I especially liked the part where Sunset Shimmer, in a fit of jealous rage, knocked out Rainbow Dash mid-guitar solo!"
"It wasn't a fit of jealous rage!" Sunset Shimmer angrily replied.
"If you say so," Trixie replied before she looked away and caught a glimpse of how Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna seemed to discuss the last two performances. "Ooh! Looks like they've already decided who'll be moving on to the finals! I'm guessing it wasn't too difficult a decision," she said confidently, not being a little bit worried that it would go any other way.
"Yeah, probably not," Star Twinkle thought while he took a look at Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna as well. He already scratched the idea that he and the Rainbooms made it to the finals after this mess of a performance.
But to his surprise, something seemed to be going on next to Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna. The Sirens appeared next to the two and began to sing. For a moment, it looked as if Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna were both caught into a trance.
Star Twinkle had a slight guess what this was all about but he was not too sure. It's not like he could put a thought into his guess anyway since the rest of his friends were still continuing to argue at this very moment.
"What can we do?" Rarity said in her frustration. "There isn't gonna be another opportunity for us to play. And I had the most gorgeous outfit for the finals!"
"Yup, 'cause that's the real tragedy here, Rarity – that you won't get to play dress-up!" Applejack said while rolling her eyes.
"You know perfectly well that is not what I meant!" Rarity replied angrily after hearing those words.
"You guys wanna keep it down?" Rainbow Dash interrupted. "They're about to announce who's moving on,"
"Who are you kidding?" Fluttershy said frustrated. "You know it isn't gonna be us,"
Despite what was happening just a few minutes ago, Star Twinkle kept his eyes focused on the Sirens, who now walked down to the audience again. "I don't know...I think we might have a chance..." Star Twinkle mumbled to his friends, much to their surprise. It wasn't really like him to see the positive about things. He was still clinging to that one guess that he had after seeing what the Sirens did to Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna.
But the only way to find out if it was right, was to wait for the result, which was about to be revealed right now by Principal Celestia.
"The band that will be joining the Dazzlings in tonight's finals... The Rainbooms!"
"What?!" Trixie said in complete shock, followed by confused gasps by the Rainbooms.
Now it was obvious for Star Twinkle that the Sirens had their hands into all of this. There was no way that the interrupted performance of the Rainbooms was better than Trixie's. The Sirens must have pulled the strings so that the Rainbooms would win. But that only raised the question of why they would do such a thing.
Needless to say, Trixie was pretty angry about this result and walked away from the group. "This isn't over!" She said before she was off for good.
The Rainbooms got back on stage, where Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna waited for them. "Congratulations. You deserve it," Principal Celestia said happily.
However, the group was well aware that this was not the case. The group was quickly joined by the Sirens, their future opponents, who actually seemed kinda happy about this result.
"See you at tonight's big show, Rainbooms. We are really looking forward to it," Adagio Dazzle said in an amused tone.
It was just now, that the Rainbooms noticed how the audience reacted to their victory. No one looked happy and believed that this victory was deserved, making the Rainbooms feel rather uncomfortable. Star Twinkle figured that this was what the Sirens were after. They wanted to create more negative emotions to feed off from.
Whatever the reason was, the group needed to leave because it was getting rather serious inside the gym. No one really wanted to stay there any longer because of all the bad things that were thrown at them. Besides, they still needed some time to prepare for the final tonight.
Later...
The Rainbooms decided to practice at the stage where the final was supposed to be tonight. It was a little stadium with a lot of seats in front of it, fitting for the last two bands to perform on.
The Sirens where nowhere to be found and didn't seem to want to use this stadium so the Rainbooms might as well took it for their practice. However, that exact absence of the Sirens was what worried Star Twinkle and made him lose focus on the practice.
"Check, one, two. Testing, testing... " Rainbow Dash said right into her microphone. There was no feedback which was probably because Star Twinkle didn't turn it on, something that he was supposed to do right now if he wouldn't have drifted off in thoughts. But as soon as he saw how Rainbow Dash looked at him annoyed, he panicked a little and turned it on. Shortly after, Rainbow Dash tested it again. "Testing...!" She said, followed by a horribly loud microphone feedback noise, that made everyone shrug.
Realizing that, Star Twinkle had turned the microphone on a little too much, he quickly turned it down again. "Sorry," he apologized embarrassed with a grin on his face. "I had some other things on my mind just now," he explained.
"Yeah, like, why we won the last round?" Pinkie Pie guessed.
Star Twinkle was clearly not the only one who was confused about this outcome. "Well, it didn't really make sense," Fluttershy agreed. "We were awful. Doesn't anybody else think it's strange that we're the ones that made it to the finals?" She asked.
Star Twinkle was about to tell Fluttershy that he probably knew more about this but before he could do that, an unexpected visitor approached the Rainbooms.
"Very strange." It was Trixie, who didn't seem all too happy and glared at the group.
"What are you doing here, Trixie? Pretty sure the losers are supposed to be up there in the cheap seats," Rainbow Dash said unimpressed by Trixie's sudden appearance.
Trixie wasted no time and explained why she appeared in front of the group. "The Great and Powerful Trixie is the most talented girl at Canterlot High. It is I who deserves to be in the finals," she claimed angrily. "And I will not be denied!" She added before she snapped her fingers, which served as a signal for one of her other band members to pull a lever that would open up a trap door right beneath the feet of the Rainbooms.
The group dropped down one floor below. Thankfully they weren't hurt too much by the fall and only got away with a few bruises. When they looked up again they saw Trixie laughing at their current situation. "See you never!" She said before the trapdoor closed again and left the group.
"That... is not good..." Star Twinkle said after he found himself and his friends in this situation.
To be continued...