//------------------------------// // The Counter Spell // Story: Equestria Girls JT: Rainbow Rocks // by MrBiteo //------------------------------// The Humane 6 and Sunset Shimmer managed to exit out of the school recovering from the failure of their plan. Twilight was pacing around trying to figure out what went wrong with their plan while the others sat on the steps of the entrance. "It doesn't make any sense." Twilight said, "I should've been able to create the spark that would help us break their spell. That's how it worked before." "But to defeat me, you drew magic from the crown I was wearing." Sunset reminded Twilight as she, too tried to come up with her own way to defeat the Sirens, "The Sirens' magic comes from their music. So maybe you have to use the same kind of magic to defeat them." Twilight's only response to Sunset's solution was a changed look of realization. "Or...maybe not." Sunset then reconsidered thinking that it may not have been the right answer. "No." Twilight reassured, to Sunset's surprise and confusion, "I think you're onto something." "Really?" Sunset asked rather excitedly. "It's when you play music that you transform now, right?" Twilight asked the others. "Yep. Ears, tails, the whole shebang." Applejack confirmed. "So, maybe the way to use that magic to defeat the Sirens is by playing a musical counter spell." Twilight said to everyone. "You mean like a song?" Fluttershy asked. "Uh-huh." Twilight confirmed, "And in order to free everyone who's been exposed to the Sirens' spell, we'll need them all to hear it." The rest of the Humane 6 then thought about a way to have everyone under the Dazzlings' spell in one place in order for the spell to work. Rarity gasped, being the first to speak. "The band competition. That's the next time we can be certain that everyone will be at the same place at the same time." "Guess the Rainbooms are the band to beat." Applejack remarked. "And I believe you, Twilight, just became the Rainbooms' newest member." Rarity then said to Twilight. Twilight visibly didn't the news too well, along with Sunset Shimmer, who moped about how she wasn't given any appreciation for her contribution to the plan as the girls all came to Twilight, passing by and ignoring Sunset. "So? What do you wanna play?" Pinkie asked Twilight, "Triangle? Sousaphone? Theremin?" As she asked Twilight, Pinkie pulled said instruments out of thin air (mainly cartoon logic) and played each of them in order: first the triangle, the sousaphone, and then finally the theremin, "Soooo magical." "I might take a little too long to learn how to play something with these." Twilight said referring to her hands, "I'll just sing." "Like, as in, lead singer?" Rainbow Dash came up beside Twilight and asked her, "'Cause that's usually my gig. This being my band and all." "It's our band." Applejack corrected Rainbow Dash, "And, of course, as lead singer. She's the one with the magical know-how to help us pull this off." "Okay, yeah, that's cool. I'll just use this as a chance to hone my already insanely good guitar skills." Rainbow Dash agreed, only because it was for Twilight. She then did a bit of an air guitar, which made Twilight smile knowing that she was still the Rainbow Dash she knew and love. "It's only temporary." Twilight explained, "And we don't have to win the Battle of the Bands. We just have to perform during the first round of the competition." "Let's get to learning that musical counter spell." Rainbow Dash said already eager to get started. "Well, that's just it." Twilight then said, "I-I don't know any." The rest of the group awed in disappointment at Twilight's confession. "But I'm sure I can figure out how to write one." Twilight said trying to make the situation better. "Totally!" Spike agreed walking up to her and patting his paw on her shin, "Twilight can write a spell like it's nobody's business. That's pretty much how she got to become a princess in Equestria." "Technically, I helped finish a spell." Twilight corrected Spike, "And there was a little more to it than that, Spike." "Yeah, whatever." Spike then said nonchalantly. "I've got this." Twilight said as she picked up Spike, "Come on." Twilight then made her way back to the entrance of the school. "Where are you going?" Applejack asked Twilight. "Well, last time we were here, Spike and I spent the night at the library." Twilight explained. "Are you crazy? We're besties now. Slumber party at my house!" Pinkie told Twilight, giving her a big hug, almost crushing both her and Spike. The other girls were excited to be having their first ever slumber party together tonight. An hour later, all the girls attended Pinkie's slumber party and they all did various things with each other: Twilight was working on the counter spell; Fluttershy petted Spike; Pinkie was busy on her laptop; Rarity was showing Sunset her phone; and Rainbow Dash and Applejack were playing a video game. However, even in their slumber party, they weren't safe from the surveying eye of the spidebot perched at the upper corner of the ceiling by the bedroom door, now installed with a cloaking mode so that the girls couldn't see it. "Status update: 'Okie-dokie-lokie'." Pinkie said typing in said status update in presumably her webpage in a social media website. Rarity, Fluttershy and Sunset took a selfie together. Rarity, however, was displeased when she looked at the photo on her phone and found that Spike had photo bombed the selfie behind them as she turned around and glared angrily at Spike for what he did while Sunset and Fluttershy couldn't help but quietly giggle about it. Rainbow and Applejack were busy playing a video game against each other with Applejack beating Rainbow. Rainbow Dash then hit the reset button on the console, not wanting to lose. "Hey! I was about to beat you!" Applejack said to Rainbow Dash. "I doubt it." Rainbow merely said, denying Applejack's word as she turned to Twilight on the bed, "So, Twilight. How's that counter spell comin'?" "Huh? Oh, uh, good. Great." Twilight answered nervously before turning her attention to Fluttershy, who was holding Pinkie's stuffed alligator that just so happen to resemble Pinkie's pet alligator back in Equestria, "Thanks for letting use your notebook, Fluttershy. I really like the song you wrote for the Rainbooms." "Thanks." Fluttershy thanked Twilight, though it somewhat reminded her of how much Rainbow Dash was neglecting her work, "Hopefully, one day we'll get a chance to play it." "Why, of course we'll have a chance to play it, dear. Your work shouldn't go unnoticed." Rarity reassured Fluttershy wanting to show her (Rarity) support for her (Fluttershy) song. "That's what Rainbow Dash is doing." Fluttershy pointed out. Speaking of which, Rainbow Dash laughed as she took away Applejack's controller, who was trying to reach for it and take it back, but Rainbow kept moving it out of the farmgirl's reach. As Twilight was working on the counter spell (or at leash she was trying to), suddenly Rarity sat next to her in the bed. "Twilight. I think I speak for all of us when I say I don't know what we would've done if you hadn't come back to help us." Rarity told Twilight, to which everyone else agreed wholeheartedly when the doorbell rang. "Pizza's here!" Pinkie announced as everyone quickly exited out of the room hungry for said pizza, leaving Twilight alone on Pinkie's bed. Her face turned to disappointment as she looked back at what was supposed to be the counter spell on Fluttershy's notebook, which revealed some failed attempts that were crossed out as she sighed in disappointment as a result. "Do you want any pizza?" Pinkie asked Twilight after coming back in the room with a slice of pizza hanging in her mouth. Twilight nodded and Pinkie went back to join the others. Twilight put Fluttershy's notebook in the drawer of the nightstand before leaving the room to go get some pizza with the girls. Though, it didn't help ease her thoughts on Some time later, when everyone went to bed, Sunset was having one of the nightmares with the mysterious cloaked figure from earlier. In her dream, she was running away from something where she then hid in an alley to lose what was after her. Just as she thought the coast was clear, Sunset was suddenly ambushed by the robotic tentacles from above. Sunset sprung up waking from her nightmare as she was clearly sweating. She soon noticed Twilight was missing and found her in the kitchen trying to write the counter spell. "No, that's not gonna work." Twilight said to herself. "Hey, Twilight." Sunset greeted Twilight, catching her off guard. "You're up late." "Just looking over the counter spell." Twilight told Sunset hiding what she wrote from Sunset's vision. "We only get one shot at this. It has to be perfect." "We really are lucky you're here." Sunset told Twilight as she opened the fridge to get herself a snack. "That's what everyone keeps telling me." Twilight said. "Who could possibly need this much whipped cream?" Sunset asked wondering about the loads of whipped cream in the fridge, taking one out and squirting a bit on her finger. "Must be nice to have everyone always looking to you for answers to their problems, instead of waiting for you to cause a problem." "Just because everyone expects something from you, doesn't mean it's guaranteed to happen." Twilight said. "But that doesn't stop them from expecting it." Sunset pointed out. "Which only makes things harder because the last thing you want to do is..." Twilight said. "Let everybody down." Twilight and Sunset both said at the exact same time, which made them look at each other in surprise. They each responded with a smile and as Sunset closed the fridge, she soon saw Pinkie's sister, Maud right there. Sunset screamed in response to Maud's presence. "Boulder was hungry." Maud said in her usual deadpan voice opening a cabinet to retrieve some crackers to feed to Boulder. Sunset back away as Maud left the kitchen pouring some crackers to Boulder. "I still can't get over the fact that she's related to Pinkie Pie." Sunset said to Twilight lowering her voice to make sure Maud wasn't hearing her. "You and me both." Twilight agreed as they both smiled glad to see there was something they had in common Sunset yawned. "I better get some sleep." Sunset said. "Good luck with the counter spell. Not that you'd need it. This must be nothing compared to the stuff you're expected to deal with as a Princess in Equestria." Twilight, however, couldn't accept Sunset's praise and wanted to say something to her. "Sunset Shimmer..." Twilight called out to Sunset before she left, but she couldn't bring herself to reveal how she was feeling at the moment. "Never mind. It's not important." With that, Sunset went back to bed. As she walked down the hallway, she then remembered the pain from when she recieved her scars back in the Fall Formal and screamed a bit in pain as she collapsed to the floor. Her scream was heard by Twilight, who immediately ran to Sunset's aid and helped up where she noticed Sunset's hand was placed on her back. "Sunset, are you alright?" Twilight asked Sunset in concern. "I'm fine. Thanks for asking, though." Sunset told Twilight before she saw that the latter was looking directly at her back and decided to show her what caused her the pain as she pulled her shirt to reveal the scars on her back. Twilight gasped in horror at what she saw. "How long has that been there?" "Since the Fall Formal." Sunset answered pulling her shirt back down. "And ever since, I've had these dreams where I'm being hunted down by someone with long tentacles. Ever though the scars have fully healed, the memories still remind me of it. I have no idea what exactly happened back then, but I hope one day I'll find out." "I'm so sorry." Twilight apologized to Sunset. "I didn't know..." "Don't be sorry. You had nothing to do with it." Sunset assured Twilight. "I know, but I wish I had done something to prevent it." Twilight feeling sorry for Sunset. "It's okay. Right now, we have to focus on what's important." Sunset said.