“HRAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRHHH!!!”” Roared a... big hairy thing with a lion's body, a bat's wings, and a scorpion's tail. With a murderous snarl, the magical beast lunged across a clearing in the Everfree Forest, its claws aimed at a group of cowering ponies.
At the very last second, a beam of turquoise energy ensnared its tail, yanking it back in mid-air. The beast fell ineffectually to the ground—then clawed at the earth as it felt itself being tugged backwards.
“Rnnnngh...!!!” Sunset Shimmer sweated all over. Her brightly-glowing horn formed steam in the afternoon air as she strained to pull the hungry beast from the dozens of people-ponies reflected in its bloodthirsty eyes. “Everybody! Stay b-back!” she hissed, gnashing her teeth as her unicorn powers fluctuated on the verge of overload. “Keep with your Trot Buddy and wait for us to dispense with this beast!”
“What is that th-thing?!?” a teenager's voice cracked.
“Looks like a mount from World of Warcraft!” another nasal'd.
“Microchips, now's not the time—”
“HRESSSSSSSSH!!!” The beast spun about, yanking free of Sunset's magic and taking a swipe at her with her claw.
“Htttt!” Sunset leapt backwards. With a pulse from her horn, she levitated a log and held it out like a shield, blocking multiple scorpion-stabs from the monster's poison-barbed tail. “It's called a 'Manticore!' And it won't stop attacking until it's either been fed or...” She shoved the log against the weight of the beast. “...rnnnnghhh—shown who's dominant!!!”
“Everybody, just do as she says!” Twilight Sparkle exclaimed. Huddling in the shadows alongside several other ponies, she adjusted her big adorkable glasses and barked: “Sunset knows what she's doing!”
“Yeah, well, she looks like she could use a helping hoof!” cracked a voice from overhead. “Hiyaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
In a prismatic streak, Rainbow Dash dive-bombed into the spine of the manticore. The beast howled in discomfort and swiped madly at the pegasus with his paw.
She dodged the attack, backflipped, and came back down with rapid kicks of her rear hoofs. “Ya-ta-ta-ta-ta!!!”
“Rainbow—!” Sunset grimaced, floating her log out further to keep the manticore from hitting her flying friend back. “Didn't you hear what Twilight and I just said?!”
“No way I'm letting you wrestle this melon fudge on your own!” Rainbow bore a devilish grin and performed loopty-loops above the beast's furry crown. “Don't worry, Sunset, I've got this! I've speedrunned God of War!” She dodged a scorpion tail, twirled about, and walloped the manticore on the head. “Zooop!” Whack!
“HRAAAAAUGHHH!” Angrier and angrier, the monster swung and thrashed about blindly.
“Ugh... Fine!” Sunset merely frowned, pivoting her body and forcing the monster to strafe further into the clearing. “Just help me move it away from the rest of the expedition! That'll be step number one!”
“You got it, chief!” Rainbow saluted before side-dodging a clawswipe. “Whoah! Haha! Jump back! Kiss myself! Whoop!” She dove in repeatedly for swift jabs to the monster's backside. “Hey! Twi! How about a bit of light, huh?”
“Huh? Oh! Uhm...” Twilight's nose scrunched beneath her glasses... then scrunched harder. “Hrnnnnnnnnnttt!” At last—after what looked like passing a stone—the bookworm-turned-unicorn summoned a steady pulse of lavender illumination from her horn. “Ahh!” She grinned rosily, proud at herself. “Excelsior!”
“Twiliiiiiiiiight!” Rainbow pointed, sweating and flying and dodging. “At the freak! Blind him!”
“Oh! Uhm... right! On it!” Twilight aimed her head forward from the sidelines, doing as she was told.
All three mare-girls continued distracting and fighting the otherwordly creature...
...meanwhile, Trixie and Flash Sentry squatted low in a cluster of bushes, watching intently from afar.
“Wow...” Flash's muzzle hung open. His eyes focused on the most fiery of the three heroic figures. “...I always knew that Sunset was brave, but I never knew she was this brave.”
“Mmmmmmm...” Trixie fiddled with a dead leaf, folding it in two.
“But here... she's in her element... she's the real deal...” Flash bore a dumb smile. “She's braver than I ever imagined.” A slight chuckle. “...that's pretty cool.”
“Yuh huh...” Trixie folded the leaf into four. “...why not write a song about it?”
Flash wrenched his gaze off the noisy fight. “What's gotten you so down?”
The pouted, attempting to fold the leaf into six. Crunch. It fell into tiny brown platelets and blew away in the wind. “Sparkle.”
Flash's eyes darted towards the four-eyed Twilight, then back to Trixie. “What about her?”
Trixie pouted some more, pawing at the loose soil beneath them and the bushes. “Why couldn't Trixie be providing the magical glow for this epic showdown of great and powerful proportions?”
“... … ...” Flash looked into the clearing. Rainbow attempted suplexing the manticore while Sunset smacked it several times with the staff—all in the spotlight of Twilight's hornlight. “Well...” He looked back at Trixie. “Face it. These three have been through way more than both you or me.”
“Mmmmmmmmmmmmehhhhhhhh...” Trixie meh'd.
“They've been through the trip to Ponyville and back... that's why they're leading us through this expedition to begin with.
“Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmehhhhhhhhhhhhh...” Trixie meh'd even harder.
Flash leaned his chin against a dirt-stained hoof. “Don't you think you're being a little bit unfair to them?”
“Trixie has dealt with magical miscreants before, y'know!” She frowned, glaring into the epic battle of ages. “Just before spring break, for instance! Trixie helped Sunset defeat... defeat... whatshername! Y'know...! Erhm... Cauliflower Barnacles! The non-consensual alzheimer's girl!”
Flash blinked. “...Who?”
“Point is, I have experience! I have gusto! I have... I have...” And just like that, Trixie looked adorably constipated once more. “Hrnnnnnnnghhhh!” At long last—after much overconcentration—her horn glowed violet from tip to base. “See?! Trixie can do actually things in this world! She can turn that beast's ugly face into magical teacups—”
With a tiny sizzle, her own horn extinguished itself. The bush and its surrounding foilage turned dark once again.
“Euuunngh...” With a defeated sigh, Trixie fwomped her face into the bed of leaves where they were hid. “It's no use. Trixie is done for.”
“Look... why don't we just relax and...” Flash gestured towards the cacophonous scene. “...let them Jackie Chan it up a bit on their own, okay?”
“Mrmmmfff... easy for you to say...”
“Huh?”
She tilted her blue face up just enough to glare at him. “You're always keen on sitting it out on the sidelines. Letting your girlfriend do all the hard work.”
“She's not my girlfriend...”
“Your girlfriends do allllll the work and all you do is sit back, look pretty, and write songs to cheer them on! You know your place, Mister Sentry, and it's sure as heck not the spotlight! Not like Trixie! So... how can you understand...” She sighed again, staring longingly at the combat. “...how ungreat and unpowerful this makes her feel...”
Flash bit his lip, gazing aside. He thought about the first year he dated Sunset. She was demanding, callous, obnoxious, and a complete and utter bully to every student at CHS around them. And—despite that fact, and knowing that fact—he continued dating her for a second year... and a third. Through three separate Fall Formals, he remained by her side, supporting her, enabling her—and all of her reprehensible actions.
It was long surmised—often by Sunset herself—that she only dated Flash because he was popular. Supposedly it served her and her quest for power—both socially and magically.
And yet, the young man often saw things a different way, and it formed a lump in his throat every time he forced himself into the humbling retrospection. Truth was, he enjoyed her spotlight. Because—he had to face it—Sunset Shimmer was always far more interesting than he ever could have been. She was magical unicorn woman from another dimension? Himself? He was just a wannabe punk rocker in torn jeans. Even with all of her negative qualities, Sunset's significance reigned far and wide above his.
And when they stopped dating, it was as if his usefulness in the universal equation nullified itself. People stopped talking to him. People stopped paying attention to him. Aside from a smattering of guy friends, Flash was virtually alone—and he only had himself to blame. He cringed even harder upon remembering how hard he tried to... soak up another unicorn woman's spotlight... how much he couldn't just leave the glory be to her alone.
It was no wonder that she pushed him away. It was no wonder that everyone thought he was just sad and pathetic. One didn't need a magic portal to wedge a universe between himself and the worlds beyond.
Flash knew this. Nobody else needed to be bothered with the truth. Least of all a random trot buddy.
“Everyone...” He felt his muzzle moving on its own. “...finds their time in the spotlight at some point or another, Trixie.”
“Hrmmfff...” She snorted, her eyes trailing after Rainbow Dash as she pinballed between trees and kamikaze'd the manticore yet again. “Yeah, right.”
“I mean it.” Flash pointed. “Look at Twilight over there.”
“Heh. Yeah. I'm sure you'd like to.”
He clenched his jaw, continuing nevertheless: “Barely six months ago, she was just some random student at Crystal Prep. But look at her now!” He smiled as the egghead in question zapped light magic at the beast, stunning it so that Rainbow and Sunset could go in for the knockout blow. “She's going on fantastical adventures, learning Equestrian magic, battling a Macdonald!”
“Manticore.”
“Whatever. Point is... she went from below-average to badass in less time than it took for you and I to plan our majors beyond CHS!” Flash looked at Trixie. “That's pretty darn quick on the uptake!”
The blue-mane'd pony growled into the shrubgrass. “How is this supposed to encourage Trixie?”
“Point is, that could happen with you too!”
“Not even a fair comparison.” Trixie harumph'd, nose skyward. “Sparkle and her friends have Equestrian magic on their side! You ask me, it's cheating.”
“It's magic,” Flash droned. “It's all 'cheating.'”
Trixie flung him a flabbergasted look. “Spoken like a true simpleton! What do you know about the mystifying depths of true wizardry?!”
“Not nearly as much as you!” Flash managed a wink. “Which is why you have that much more of a chance of earning the spotlight someday. You just gotta give it time...!”
“... … ...” Trixie rubbed her fuzzy chin. “Give it time...”
“I mean... sure... why not... y'know...?”
“Come to think of it...” Trixie's lips pursed. “...back in our world, the only people who get empowered with Equestrian magic are women. So, if that reigns true...” She finally smirked. “...that gives me at least fifty percent more of a chance of getting somewhere in life than you.”
“Cool.” Flash monotone'd. “Do you feel any better?”
“Or maybe it's one hundred and fifty percent,” Trixie wondered aloud. “How would that ratio work, exactly? Bah! Trixie is bad at math...”
“Probably explains why you stick to handkerchiefs.”
“Hmmff! If Trixie finds a magical geode back home, it better not be cosmic wheelkinesis or something. That would really chap Trixie's caboose.”
“That... is...” Flash nodded... nodded some more... and chose to face the ongoing fight scene. “... … ...yeah. Sure. Whatever you say.”
“Thanks for the pep talk, sad-sack.” Trixie slapped his backside and winked. “You're really not that useless of a cheerleader after all.”
He was still wincing from the stinging sensation in his flank. “Guess I'll have to write another song...”
Whap! A vicious uppercutting paw sent Rainbow Dash flying backwards and across the clearing. “Waaaaaa-aaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaaaa...!!!” Her crashing body formed a steep trench in the dirt until she grinded to a stop, lying upside down and facing just inches away from Flash's nose.
“'Sup, Rainbow?”
“Mleh.”