It's almost pathetic, how easy it is to get practically the school's entire population at each other's throats. They even have a school-wide musical event prepared, just waiting for us to turn it into the school's first Battle of the Bands. Sunset remains nearly immune, thanks to the protective influence of her magic; if she's a little more on edge than usual, it's not enough for me to distinguish from more general reaction to our appearance in the school. Her newfound 'friends', who turn out to be none other than the group the purple girl teamed up with to fight her (and who, I note as I watch the crowd, she doesn't in fact seem all that close to), are similarly resistant, even all these months after using the Elements. On the one hand, it's inconvenient, having such a large group (especially hers) remain outside of our control; but, on the other hand, it makes our objective even clearer. Those six are the ones who we can drain in order to get a fraction of the Element's power for ourselves, to become (if Sunset prior to her transformation was to be trusted) powerful enough to take over the whole world.
When she shows up to the pre-Battle party, things are a dicier. She's somehow managed to get the purple girl back, despite my having seen her vanish through the portal which shouldn't be anywhere close to reopening yet, and the girl (who turns out to be named Twilight Sparkle) tries to lead her friends in magically blasting us, presumably the same way they blasted Sunset. It's not something I'd considered might be possible, and for a moment I'm afraid we're going to be blasted into a still more remote dimension where we won't have even a chance to get our magic back.
Their failure, which seems to be as much of a surprise to Twilight and Sunset as it is to me, proves a perfect opportunity to turn the whole school against the six (or, now, seven) of them as well.
"You're never going to get away with this." Sunset glowers at the three of us from the little dead-end segment of hallway she's cornered herself in.
"Aren't we?" I put on a faux-curious expression.
"My friends will stop you. Just like they stopped me, when I was trying to do the same thing."
"Oh, yes. Your friends. Your 'friends' who leave you to stand on the sidelines while they play against us, despite all your musical talent. Your 'friends' who do nothing to shield you from the resentment of the rest of the students. Your 'friends' who remind you of all your regrets every other conversation, not even for any deliberate reason, but just because they're too unconcerned with your feelings to avoid it." Seeing Sunset's face fall in response to my tirade is absolutely worth the time it took to get a few students to tell me everything they knew about her group. "Do you really think they trust you? Do you really think they care about you at all beyond the way that their 'friendship' prevents you from taking another shot at ruling Equestria? You used to be so good at reading people. But then, claims of intimacy can blind a person, I suppose."
"You're lying," Sunset says after a moment, her face still downcast but her tone defiant. "Don't think I don't know how you approach things. You're trying to plant a seed of doubt, get me to fight them. It won't work."
"You really have changed," I whisper. "I keep hoping that it's all a ruse, you know. That the Sunset I loved is still in there somewhere, that you're just working on some scheme which I haven't put together yet. But no. It's real, isn't it." My voice has risen to full volume. "Everything that let us work together is gone. Did you know that you were the best thing to happen to me in decades, if not longer? Someone I could actually connect with, who could follow where I was going when I thought about things, whose goals were compatible enough with mine that we weren't doomed to eventually fight... But no. You were manipulating me, just like I was manipulating you, so obviously our relationship must have actually been bad for me." I snort, holding up a hand to Sonata to preempt her predictably-incoming confusion over my sarcasm. "And now look at you. You've traded in everything you used to have in order to become the school's punching bag, gotten attached to the world the three of us are going to rule, blindly follow a group of girls who are blatantly using you, and still think that we're the ones who are going to come out worse from this situation."
Sunset is quiet for a moment. I can see her swallowing down whatever her first response is, and then her second, before she finally raises her head to answer me. There are tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry," she says. "Is that what you want to hear? Because it's true. I was stupid. I kept putting off having any real conversations with you after I was beaten, even though I knew I needed to, until it passed entirely from my mind, because... I don't even know. I was afraid you'd be upset with me for changing my mind? I was afraid my friends would be upset with me for keeping up a relationship with someone so obviously like I used to be? But I should have. Maybe we wouldn't have been able to keep things up anyway, because I do regret who I was and we probably wouldn't have been able to keep going like we did before. But I'm sorry that I didn't make more of an effort than I did, and that I hurt you as a result."
"Is that all you have to say?" I notice that my fists are clenched, and deliberately relax.
Sunset opens her mouth to respond, but I raise my voice to speak over whatever she's trying to say. "I refuse your apology. You did hurt me, more than I'd thought you'd be able to. However sorry you might be now, I'm going to make sure that you're sorrier before this is all over. Come on, girls." I turn and start walking out of the hallway.
"But she—" Aria starts to object.
"Come on."
That conversation went on for longer than I'd wanted it to. We barely make it backstage in time for our turn.