Six Months before Anon-A-Miss:
Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were dancing alongside the rest of Canterlot High’s student body as the warring bands sang about things. The trio felt conflicting emotions as the Dazzlings sang their disharmonious tune and the Rainbooms countered with friendship. Magical constructs were formed in the heavens above Canterlot and the Sirens seemed on the verge of victory when a massive rainbow shaped alicorn emerged from the clouds and blasted the trio with a powerful beam of harmonic magic.
This caused the Dazzlings to collapse on stage as the source of their powers were shattered completely and utterly. A light wave of magic spread across all of the concert goers and the effects of the Sirens’ songs were finally broken.
The Canterlot Movie Club blinked several times as they could once again think clearly and they began to process what was going on.
“More magic,” Scootaloo complained as she glared at the Dazzlings who were running off stage.
Sweetie Belle shook her head briefly and folded her arms across her chest. “Ever since Sunset came here magic has been a huge problem.”
Apple Bloom grit her teeth in frustration. “Ah was worse than ever ta Applejack just because of those magical jerks.”
The trio shared a look of understanding.
“Ah hate Sunset Shimmer.” Apple Bloom’s declaration drew nods of agreement from her two companions.
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Three Months before Anon-A-Miss:
The Canterlot Movie Club were enjoying the early summer fair when they noticed their sisters and their friends setting up on stage for a concert of some sort; curiously they approached the stage and tried to figure out when they’d been told about this.
The Rainbooms for their part enjoyed performing as often as they could, Applejack and Rarity were always discussing the fun they had whenever Princess Twilight could visit to spend some time with them. And they were surprised that they’d been able to convince the fair operators to allow this.
Apple Bloom blinked in surprise when she noticed Twilight Sparkle with the others. “Why’s she here?”
Sweetie Belle shrugged. “No idea.”
“It’s not another magical problem, is it?” Scootaloo asked confused.
Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle shook their heads in response, but before they could say anything to answer the Rainbooms started singing.
The show was perfect, it got the crowd jumping and dancing as the Rainbooms sang one of their best songs.
Scootaloo preferred Awesome as I Wanna Be, but she wasn’t about to say that in front of anybody.
At the penultimate climax of the show the band transformed once again into their strange magical forms.
Sweetie Belle huffed under her breath at the display. “There they go again, showing off the magic.”
Scootaloo looked around at some of the out-of-town guests to the fair. “Why doesn’t anybody else ever question the reality of the situation?”
Apple Bloom shrugged. “Ah don’t know and Ah don’t care. Come on, girls, let’s go back to the rides.”
Sweetie Belle nodded in agreement.
Scootaloo sighed, but joined her friends as they left the area. You saw one magical song number you’d seen them all, even if Rainbow was super awesome with her wings. “Why can’t we have magical transformations? It’d be so cool if we could fly like Rainbow Dash.”
Sweetie Belle groaned. “Come off it, Scootaloo, magic is the worst.”
“Yeah!” Apple Bloom agreed. “Applejack spends more time with Sunset and her friends than doin’ chores on the farm now that she has her magic band!”
Scootaloo sighed again, but kept her mouth shut this time.
“And sometimes Rarity changes for no reason when she’s making clothes for everybody, always showing off and glowing a lot.” Sweetie Belle frowned in disgust as something inside of her stirred. “Magic is the worst!”
Apple Bloom and Scootaloo both nodded in unison at the declaration, though for different reasons.
Scootaloo glanced between her friends and the receding stage with a slight hint of desire in her eyes. “Still kind of wish I could get wings like Dash,” she muttered to herself.
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Two Weeks before Anon-A-Miss:
The Canterlot Movie Club once again were meeting in their club room at Canterlot High going over the things they wanted to do for the holidays with their sisters this year. A large flow chart was sitting on the table with drawings all over it; Sweetie Belle was very proud of her work as an artist and it showed as she grinned at her friends.
“So, we can meet up for hot chocolate at the mall on Monday, then head off together for some window shopping and a little bit of pampering and then…”
“Pampering!” Scootaloo interrupted. “Rainbow Dash and I don’t get pampered, we don’t need any of that spa time stuff you and Rarity love so much.”
Apple Bloom giggled. “Aww come on, Scoots, it ain’t so bad.”
Sweetie Belle smirked. “Yeah. What’s the matter, you chicken?”
Scootaloo puffed her cheeks up slightly in anger and glared at her two friends. “I AM NOT A CHICKEN!”
Rubbing her ear with her finger to try and get rid of the ringing Sweetie Belle chuckled good naturedly at the effect her teasing had caused. “Might want to lower that tone just a tad, Scootaloo.”
Apple Bloom smiled knowingly before turning back to the flow chart on the table. “Ah can’t wait to spend more time with Applejack… just her and me, no concerts, no changin’ inta a freaky half pony thing, and no magic!”
Scootaloo frowned. “Applejack is turning into a centaur now?”
Apple Bloom blinked in confusion at the question. “Say what now?”
“A half pony thing would be a centaur,” Scootaloo explained slowly as if her friend were really that clueless.
“What? She just gets the ears and long hair still.”
“Then that’s not half pony,” Scootaloo stated.
Sweetie Belle nodded silently in agreement.
Apple Bloom growled a little under her breath. “Ah don’t care, ah still say she’s a half pony.”
Rolling her eyes Scootaloo turned back to the chart. “What’s this thing?” she asked pointing at the picture of a white and blue blob that vaguely resembled a horse.
Sweetie Belle blushed furiously. “That’s Windy the Windigo. I… um, well I kind of saw Flim and Flam putting up pictures of her at their store and I kind of liked the design. She’s pretty cute.”
Scootaloo shook her head. “What the heck is a Windigo?”
Sweetie Belle shrugged. “Don’t know, I just liked the design.”
“Why’s she on the flow chart?” Apple Bloom asked curiously.
Sweetie Belle fingered the hem of her skirt nervously and averted her eyes. Her cheeks flushed a little and she tried to answer her friends, but her voice was so soft they barely heard her.
“What did you say?” Scootaloo leaned in closer to try and hear better.
“I said, I wanted to show it to Rarity!”
“Ah don’t think she’d appreciate it.”
Before they could continue their discussion a loud murmur from outside in the hall caught their attention. The trio shared curious looks before moving to see what the commotion was all about. Pinkie Pie was bouncing through the halls loudly singing a Christmas carol, Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were following her with a few smiles or nervous expressions on their faces.
“Hey!” Apple Bloom ran out of the room to give Applejack a hug. “Why are you so excited, sis?”
Applejack chuckled. “We’re goin’ to spend tons of time with Sunset during the holidays.”
Rarity nodded. “Oh yes, it’s going to be just simply divine.”
“And the best thing is we can give her real feelings of togetherness and family while we’re doing it, totally awesome!” Rainbow Dash declared with a huge grin.
Scootaloo’s face fell just a tad. “But, what about our plans?”
“Aww, we’ll still hang squirt, just not as much as we thought.” Rainbow ruffled Scootaloo’s hair before following after Pinkie.
“Yes, I do apologize, Sweetie, but Sunset never really spent much time with her family during the holidays and we want to show how special a time it is meant to be,” Rarity told her sister with an affectionate smile. “We’ll still do things together, but we must spend time with Sunset, darling.” So saying she walked off with her friends leaving Sweetie Belle behind.
Apple Bloom glared after them as something inside began to fester and rot. “Horse apples,” she cussed.
“Apple Bloom!” Sweetie gasped in shock.
“Don’t tell me ya aren’t upset about this!” Apple Bloom whirled to glare at her friend. “We had a whole mess o’ plans made up, and now we just gotta throw’em away because of Sunset Shimmer?”
Scootaloo frowned slightly. “But… I mean they said it was to spend more time with her to show her a good time, right?” she asked. “She wasn’t exactly the best before.”
“Ah know!” Apple Bloom snapped in irritation. “Ah remember what she was like before Twilight came here, so what if she never had a decent Christmas? What makes her deserve one now?”
Scootaloo glanced between her two friends; she was more used to Rainbow ditching on planned things before so it hadn’t hurt her as much, but she was still disappointed. “Well she helped save us all from the Dazzlings…”
“Who were here only because of the magic she brought here!” Sweetie reminded frustratedly.
“You two are really upset about this,” Scootaloo observed.
“Come on, let’s go see if we can salvage any o’ our plans,” Apple Bloom decided, turning around she headed back into the club room.
Scootaloo sighed. Sure it hurt that Rainbow Dash wanted to spend more time with Sunset to help share the love this time of year inspired, but that didn’t mean she was as upset as the other two. She wasn’t sure why, but she began to feel like nothing good could come of this growing resentment they all seemed to be gaining towards Sunset and magic in general.
As she rejoined her friends she failed to notice when a small surge of magical energies seemed to flicker between the rapidly disappearing group and her own friends. It was a tiny wisp of magic, but it was something unusual. And it was strange enough to warrant the growing sense of discomfort Scootaloo was feeling at that moment.
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The Magic of Friendship was a curious thing, in the human world it was extremely confusing for Sunset Shimmer as she continued to try and grasp why it behaved the way it did. Several weeks ago she’d been running tests on her friends to try and understand it more, and her conclusions had been pretty disheartening. Humans and magic were simply just too unpredictable.
That being said these test may have resulted in further harmonizing between the group of six which led to their magic beginning to express itself at odd times. Just the other day Applejack had ponied up when she was doing some chores on the farm, at the time she’d been talking with her brother about something important. But this meant she wasn’t paying too much attention, so when she did pony up she’d been just as surprised as Big Mac.
Harmony Magic in Equestria was attuned to the Elements of Harmony, and ponies in general. It permeated the air around them and even the land, it was powerful and benevolent and served a purpose. It was also easily quantifiable and measurable and could readily be understood. Entire theses had been written up about the study of magical phenomena.
Very little however was known about the magic of Disharmony or Chaos. Discord knew a lot about it of course, but he wasn’t exactly in a sharing mood for most of his life and he still preferred not to mention much about it despite being ‘reformed’. Still it did exist in Equestria, but had yet to manifest in any clear way in the human world. During the incident with the Sirens disharmony was prevalent, but not enough to fully disrupt the Magic of Harmony until the very end when they finally triggered something in the group of girls that had attempted to defy them.
This magic had been expelled and dealt with; or so it had been believed, but like all things magical the energy had to go somewhere. When the gems on the Sirens’ necklaces had been destroyed it had fully broke the spell placed on everybody, but it had needed to dissipate somewhere and glowing beacons of magical energy like the Rainbooms was the perfect such receptacle for what little remnants remained of the Sirens’ magic.
This in turn could sense the growing conflict within the three hearts of the CMC. It was weak at the moment, but jealousy began to simmer just below the surface. Months of jealousy towards magic, showing off super abilities, expressing love and compassion more towards Sunset Shimmer. A girl who had made them miserable in the past. It had been hard to turn aside the beliefs they had known about the girl from then and now, the image of Sunset as a controlling dominant bully were pretty hard grained into the memories of just about everybody at CHS. But none of them were as close to the source of Harmony Magic as the three CMC were.
So the magic within sought a conduit to escape and sow disharmony yet again. To gain a foothold and achieve some measure of control. In other words, the last vestiges of the Sirens’ magic left the Rainbooms and settled themselves within the hearts of the CMC awaiting an opportune moment to begin molding them into the perfect conduits for their plans.
And that moment would come soon. As the three argued about what plans to change and how to fix the problem Sunset caused them by being someone their sisters also wanted to spend time with, a stray swirl of green energy in Sweetie’s eye took note of the image on her flow chart.
Yes. The Sirens had their chance and had failed spectacularly, now they were off who knew where trying to come to terms with the loss of their abilities. So why not change their new vessels into something more suitable for the holidays? It was time for the Windigos to return.