"Hey, Sunset, do you know where Indigo is?" Lemon asked, joining Sunset as she walked out of the castle. Sunset rolled her eyes involuntarily. She still wasn't used to this whole friendship thing, and sometimes she found that hanging out with other ponies all the time voluntarily grated on her nerves - she still needed her alone time.
"Nah," Sunset told her indifferently. Then she snickered. "She's probably SLEEPING IN A CLOUD AGAIN!"
"Aah!" Indigo yelped, falling out of a nearby cloud. She popped up with an annoyed look on her face. "What the heck, Sunset?" she asked. "I was having a very nice dream, thank you!"
Sunset sighed. "Are your duties as captain of the Shadowbolts done?" she asked.
"Yes!" Indigo said indignantly.
Sunset reminded herself that just because Indigo napped a lot didn't mean that she was lazy. "Well, Lemon here was looking for you."
Indigo turned her annoyance to Lemon. "Whaaaaat?" she whined. "I was having a good dream, thank you - and Princess Luna - very much."
Lemon just grinned.
"What?"
"I heard you like to prank ponies."
Indigo started to smile and Sunset decided very clearly that she was absolutely terrified.
Flame had gone to the Dragonlands now that she was an adult and found out that she was the cousin of the current princess, Princess Ember. She also had a brother named Garble, but she described him as "a huge dick" so she tried not to associate herself with him. She and Ember, however, had really hit it off and now Flame was an ambassador to Equestria for the Dragonlands, and they really couldn't have picked anyone better. Since she grew up there, she was familiar with Equestrian customs and she the fact that she was Sunset's friend - not assistant - helped.
It was a sunny day and Flame was walking out of the castle with no small amount of scrolls in her arms, going to the train station. Unfortunately for her, she was about to become the victim of Indigo and Lemon's first joint prank, which is truly a horrible place to be in.
Lemon had made them both invisible temporarily and Indigo positioned a dark thundercloud over Flame's head, grinning. Lemon mouthed the countdown to her . . . three . . . two . . . one . . .
Indigo kicked the cloud with all the strength in her hoof and it let out a mighty lightning bolt, which Flame barely managed to avoid. It gave her a big case of the hiccups, and slowly all her scrolls disappeared.
Lemon and Indigo revealed themselves, and said together, "Pranked ya!" They clapped hooves.
Flame didn't find it that funny. "Great job, guys," she said menacingly. "Those were all very important and now you've made me send them to who-knows-where!"
The duo gulped at the murderous look on her face, but then Flame collapsed laughing. "You girls should have seen the looks on your faces! I pranked you!"
Indigo grinned. "Good one, Flame. Maybe you can join our pranking group when you get back from your trip."
Flame shrugged. "Maybe I will."
"Hey, Sour Sweet!" Indigo called. Sour came over and gasped.
"Wha-wha-"
All of Sour's kiwis had rotted or were infected with some type of fungus. Sour lowered her head mournfully. "Those were part of my best stock! What happened?"
Lemon snickered quietly as she gave up the illusion of the rot and fungus and they both burst out laughing as Sour stared at her miraculously healed kiwis in utter shock. "H-what-"
"It was a prank," Lemon explained. "I made an illusion."
Sour raised her head and glared. "How dare your pranks be so ridiculously good that even I fall for them?"
"You sound like Sunset," Indigo teased.
Sunset levitated her quill and scribbled down a few notes. Then she went over to her data machine, which was still spewing out . . . hearts, stars, and flowers?
Sunset ran a quick scan of her machine but couldn't find anything wrong. "What in Equus?" she muttered to herself. Then she remembered the pranking pact Lemon and Indigo had made. Her expression turned from confusion to rage.
"Darn you two!" she yelled, and charged outside, asting a quick revealing spell to see Lemon and Indigo clutching each other, terrified. "I was on the verge of a breakthrough," Sunset whispered dangerously. "Run."
They ran.
Sunset grinned to herself and went back inside.
Sugarcoat walked into the storage room. The kitchens needed more flour, so she had gone to get some.
The storage was empty.
Sugarcoat gasped and moaned, "I just bought everything! I'm gonna go broke!"
She bumped against an invisible bag of flour and her face changed to suspicion. "Sunset warned me of pranks . . ." Shrugging to herself, she awkwardly picked up the bag of flour and shuffled to the kitchens.
Huffing, Lemon lowered the spell. "Well, that was a fail."
Indigo shrugged. "That's okay."
Lemon fired up her horn and blasted a spell at Indigo which covered her with flour. Indigo mockingly gasped. "How dare you?"
Lemon smiled. "Price of the trade."
They laughed together.
The next day, Lemon was listening to her music on her headphones and going to Indigo's house, which was abnormally low today. Just then, she spotted the peach mare flying with . . . was that a griffon?!
"Hey, Indigo!" Lemon called cheerfully. "Who's this?"
"This is my old flight school buddy, Gilda," Indigo introduced. "What pranks do you have for us today?"
"Well, I was thinking we could have another go at Sugarcoat-"
"Hey, IZ!" Gilda said, speaking for the first time. "Didn't you promise me a flying session, just like old times?"
"Oh, yeah," Indigo said sheepishly. "Sorry, Lemon, I'll catch up with you later."
"Okay," Lemon said, and she walked away.
Later, Lemon was helping Sugarcoat out in her restaurant when she spotted Gilda with a horrible expression on her face outside. She didn't like and also didn't dislike the griffon, but something about her face didn't sit well with Lemon. "Hey, Sugarcoat, I'm going to take a break for a while. Is that okay?"
"Sure," Sugarcoat agreed.
Lemon casually walked outside and edged closer to Gilda, just in time to see her steal an apple from a fruit stand. The orange pony manning the boot didn't notice, but Lemon did. Maybe she's going to pay back later, Lemon thought. It wasn't something ponies usually did, but Gilda was a griffon and maybe that was just how she did things.
Casting an invisibility spell and edging closer to her, Lemon watched as Gilda passed by an elderly green mare, probably a relative of the orange pony at the apple booth. Gilda sneered to herself. "Elderly little git. Griffons would never have allowed one of their kind to get so out-of-shape. Stupid ponies. All of them are too soft. IZ is the only good one."
Lemon flinched as Gilda wacked Granny Smith with her tail. Lemon tried to justify the actions, but the monologue was too much. She had to tell Indigo; no matter how close they were, Lemon knew that Indigo would never let someone freely be rude to the residents and visitors of Crystallia.
She found Indigo doing a complex arial ballet, and watched admiringly for a few seconds before clearing her throat. "Oh, hey, Lemon!" Indigo greeted, landing.
"Hey, Indigo . . ." Lemon hesitated.
"What's wrong?"
"It's just, well . . ." Lemon explained to Indigo all that she had seen. "You've got to tell her to stop!"
Indigo suddenly looked very nervous. "I dunno, Lemon. Would Gilda really do that?"
"Yes, she would!"
Indigo continued like she hadn't heard her. ". . . and even if she did, she's my old friend! Maybe she was just in a bad mood. I could never just abandon her! I'm the Element of Loyalty!"
"Being the Element of Loyalty doesn't mean not telling your friends when they do something unacceptable," Lemon told her gently.
"I just don't know, Lemon," Indigo said. "I'll think about it."
With that, Indigo flew away.
Lemon couldn't blame Indigo. It was hard to admit that a friend you've known for years did something wrong, and even harder to stand up to them. She could blame her other friends, though.
"I dunno, Lemon. That sounds like something I would do before the whole Elements incident. Maybe not the stealing part," Sunset had added hurriedly at Lemon's incredulous look, "but maybe the just being a jerk part."
So Lemon had gone to Sunny Flare. "Maybe Indigo's right."
One by one, everypony she knew had dismissed her accusation, and it was really getting to her. "You're probably just jealous." Ludicrous! Even if she was, she would never accuse someone of the things Gilda had done. That was just mean, and the one thing that Lemon was not was mean.
She was was trotting through Main Street with her fellow Element Bearers, again trying to convince them of what she had seen and trying to ignore the points and whispers. That was when they saw Gilda blatantly roar at a yellow pegasus mare who had accidentally bumped into her.
"I-I'm so sorry-" the pegasus had tried, but Glida was having none of it.
"WHAT IS WITH YOU STUPID PONIES?! TOO SOFT, ALL OF YOU!" she declare-roared.
Everypony watched, horrified, at Glida rant at the poor mare. "I'm sorry we didn't believe you," Sunset whispered to Lemon, an apologetic look on her face. Everyone contributed their hushed agreements.
"You have to stand up to her, Indigo," Lemon told Indigo firmly. She put a hoof on Indigo's shoulder. "We have your back."
Indigo took a deep breath. "You're right." She walked up to Gilda. "And just what do you think you're doing?" she asked.
Gilda glanced at her, surprised. "I thought you were cool, Indigo," she said. "You were down with this kind of stuff."
"Correction: I didn't have the guts to stand up to you and lose a friend," Indigo corrected. "But now I realize that I should have ditched you a long time ago."
Gilda glared. "Until we meet again, Zap." She took off into the sky.
Indigo took a deep breath. "That felt a lot better than I thought it would."
"Why don't we write a letter to Emperor Sombra about this?" Sunset asked. "He asked me to report to him on my findings on the Magic of Friendship, and I think this is the perfect example."
"Yeah," Indigo agreed. Sunset brought out a piece of paper and began to write.
Dear Emperor Sombra,
Today my friend and the Element of Loyalty, Indigo Zap, learned a very important lesson. You see, a friend from Indigo's old flight school was visiting - Glida the griffon - and behind Indigo's back she was being rude to all the ponies of Crystallia.
Lemon (Element of Laughter) was the only one to witness this, and as she had been hanging out with Indigo a lot before Gilda came we all thought she was just jealous.
Indigo didn't want to stand up to Gilda, but she had to when Glida started roaring at a yellow pegasus mare and could have hurt her.
No matter how close you are to them, if your friends are doing something wrong, then you should always try to resolve the problem and stand up to them.
Your faithful student,
Sunset Shimmer