Chapter 1
First Day Ruined
Morning arrived at the campgrounds just outside the Starswirled Music Festival. It was little more than an hour after sunrise, and by this point, Sunset Shimmer was the only one still asleep within the RV that she and her friends were using for their stay at the festival. As Sunset slept in her sleeping bag beside the window, her phone was lying beside her head on the pillow. At the moment the time became 7:00, the phone’s alarm went off by playing a song by PostCrush.
Be the true… true, true original—
Sunset quickly woke up and shut off her phone’s alarm. When she glanced at her phone, she smiled as she realized that the day she had been highly anticipating had finally arrived. Tonight, she and Pinkie Pie were going to attend the live concert of their favorite band, PostCrush. As far as she was concerned, today was sure to be the best day ever.
Sunset jumped out of her sleeping bag, tossed off her pajamas — a magenta pair of legs and a magenta torso and arms with her sun symbol printed on the front of the torso — and slipped on her special outfit for the music festival. She then walked out the door and around the front of the RV to join her friends, who were already gathered outside.
At this moment, Twilight, Fluttershy, and Applejack were seated around the RV’s heating table as they ate breakfast, while Rarity and Spike were seated at a nearby picnic table as Spike demonstrated some of his beatboxing skills.
Rarity rolled her eyes and grumbled, “Ugh, I shall never understand the appeal of beatboxing.”
Spike kept his smile as he shrugged and remarked, “Eh, to each their own.”
With Sunset’s attention on Spike and Rarity, she failed to see Rainbow Dash quickly run over and stop right behind her while carrying a large paddle with the Sonic Rainbooms band symbol printed on it.
“Starswirled day one! Come and get it!” Rainbow excitedly declared as she swung the paddle around, accidentally smacking Sunset’s rear end.
“Ow! Hey!” exclaimed Sunset as she grasped her rear end and glared at Rainbow Dash.
“Oops.” Rainbow chuckled sheepishly and responded, “Sorry. I’ll be more careful next time.” She then turned and walked away.
Sunset rubbed away the stinging pain as she optimistically muttered, “Oh well. Not gonna let something minor like a sore butt ruin this perfect day.” Once the pain had dulled enough that she could tolerate it, she then walked over to the rest of her friends near the heating table to see what was available for breakfast. She smiled to see there were still plenty of pancakes available on another nearby table, so she began to walk towards it as she listened in to the conversation between her friends.
“So Ah says to Big Mac, ‘Get your own chicken coop!’” spoke Applejack.
Fluttershy happened to be in the middle of taking a sip of her orange juice when she heard the end of that joke, so she ended up doing a spit-take directly onto the front of Applejack’s torso before beginning to laugh.
“Hey! Watch it!” complained Applejack.
Fluttershy laughed for a little bit before she calmed down enough to respond, “Sorry. It’s just that one had animals in it.”
Applejack grabbed a nearby napkin and started drying herself off as she grumbled, “Well next time, try not to spray it at someone.”
“Ooh! Ooh! How about this one?!” exclaimed Pinkie Pie excitedly as she suddenly bounced over to stand beside where Applejack was seated. “What do you call a PostCrush fan with three eyes?”
Everyone was silent while Pinkie waited for a response. Sunset almost immediately understood the joke, but was too busy gathering a stack of pancakes onto her plate to speak up.
After waiting all of just one second, Pinkie cheerfully answered, “Pinkie Pie!” She then rushed over to Sunset and began shoving her towards the festival grounds.
“Whoa! Hey!” protested Sunset, despite having a smile on her face. “At least wait until I’ve actually had breakfast. We’ve still got the whole day ahead of us.”
Pinkie giggled in embarrassment as she let go of Sunset and allowed her to sit down at the picnic table.
Fluttershy glanced around at her friends with a confused look on her face before she confessed, “Um… I don’t get it.”
“It’s a pun, Fluttershy,” responded Applejack as she stood up and continued cleaning off all the orange juice on her torso.
Fluttershy looked away with a thoughtful expression on her face for a moment, then turn her gaze back to her friends and sheepishly asked, “Which part is the pun?”
Twilight turned to Applejack and asked, “Should I explain it to her?”
“Don’t bother,” grumbled Applejack as she wadded up the soaked napkin she had used to clean herself and tossed it into a trashcan a short distance away. “A joke ain’t funny if ya gotta spell it out to someone.”
Sunset couldn’t help but giggle at that exchange as she took her first bite of those delicious blueberry pancakes with maple syrup. While she was sure that all of her friends had their own plans for the first day of the music festival, the only thing that really mattered to her was being able to watch PostCrush with Pinkie Pie tonight, and she already had a plan to ensure that it would be the perfect experience.
Once everyone had finished with breakfast, the group began to walk towards the entrance to the festival grounds. Rainbow Dash eagerly led the way, followed by Applejack and Rarity having a casual conversation, Pinkie Pie cheerfully skipping along, Fluttershy and Spike walking beside each other, and finally Twilight with Sunset following right behind.
Squish.
“Whoa!” cried out Sunset as she suddenly stumbled forward and grabbed onto Twilight’s shoulders.
Twilight yelped as Sunset fell onto her, but she was able to keep herself upright and thus prevented Sunset from falling to the ground. Twilight smiled as she helped her friend stand up straight again and asked, “Are you okay?”
Sunset glanced down at her feet and noticed that her right foot had stepped into a mud puddle. She smiled as she raised her mud-coated foot and replied, “Oh, just a little mud puddle. No biggie.” She then rubbed her foot against the grassy ground a few times to scrape off most of that mud.
Pinkie Pie suddenly jumped in front of Sunset and excitedly exclaimed, “Sunset! Sunset! Look!” She then grabbed Sunset’s wrist and yanked her along behind her as she rushed ahead. Seconds later, they arrived at the three entrance lines at the front of the festival grounds, which she gestured at as she cheerfully exclaimed, “So many lines to stand in! This day’s already amazing! Let’s go!”
As Pinkie immediately rushed towards the middle line, Sunset smiled as she chuckled and shook her head. “Typical Pinkie Pie,” she muttered in amusement as she followed the party girl to the middle line.
Pinkie zipped over to the end of that middle line and casually asked the person standing ahead of her, “You come to this line often? Any other sweet lines we should hit up?”
The guy standing ahead of Pinkie raised an eyebrow in confusion and replied, “Uh… I’m just waiting in line to get through security.”
“I know!” remarked Pinkie cheerfully. “Isn’t it exciting?”
The guy turned away and muttered under his breath, “Not as exciting as watching paint dry…”
“Hey, girls!” Rainbow Dash called out as she, Fluttershy, Spike, and Twilight got into the right line.
“Hey, Rainbow!” Sunset called back contently. She then crossed her arms and proceeded to wait in line. She tapped her foot impatiently, then glanced back at the right line and saw it already moving up. “Hmm… that line’s moving fast…” she muttered with concern. She then glanced over at the left line — where Rarity and Applejack were — and saw that line also advance forward. “Huh… they are, too…”
Sunset tried to remain patient, but after counting nine people ahead of her and Pinkie in line, then watching the other two lines advance again while she remained stuck in the same place in the middle line, her patience quickly wore thin. “Can’t this thing move any faster?!” she called out towards the front of the line.
The security guard working at the front of the line paused his work and looked down the line to see who was shouting at him. He had light blue skin, medium blue on his legs, white on his torso and upper arms, a black necktie printed on the front of his torso, a grayish-blue flat-top hair piece, a mustache on his face of the same color as his hair, and sunglasses with bronze lenses that obscured his eyes. Once he identified the girl who had shouted at him, he firmly responded, “Security is an art. It cannot be rushed.” He then returned to checking the bag belonging to the person currently at the front of the line.
Sunset moaned in disappointment and slumped against one of the short walls along the line.
Pinkie hooked her arm around Sunset’s neck and pulled her friend close to her as she took out her phone and optimistically said, “Aw, cheer up, Sunset. Lines fly when you’re having fun!” She then held up her phone and smiled at it.
Sunset couldn’t resist giving a smile of her own as Pinkie took a selfie of them. Always leave it to Pinkie to find the fun in any situation, she thought to herself, already starting to feel a little better. After all, once they made it through this line, there would be nothing left to stop them from watching PostCrush.
It took nearly two hours for the line to advance enough that Pinkie and Sunset finally reached the front. Pinkie was ahead, so she was the first to be checked by the security guard. He started by searching through her tiny fanny pack, for which his very thorough and methodical search ended up taking a ridiculously long time. If he was surprised by the absurdly huge amount of random objects somehow stuffed inside that tiny bag, his expression never showed it. He then proceeded to wave a metal detecting wand over every part of her body, but Pinkie’s persistent giggling — which she claimed was completely by reflex — caused so much interruption to the guard’s process that it took him more than twice as long to complete that task than he had with most of the other people who had been ahead in line. When his search was finally complete, he finished the security process by strapping a yellow festival bracelet around Pinkie’s wrist, then scanned it with his phone to permit her entry into the music festival.
Once the security guard gave a nod of approval, Pinkie walked through the gateway as she turned back to her friend and cheerfully called out, “See you in there, Sunset!”
Now that it was Sunset’s turn to go through security, she immediately held her arms out and said to the guard, “I don’t have any carry-ons with me, so just get the scan done and let me through.”
The security guard raised an eyebrow and responded, “Didn’t you hear what I said earlier?”
“Security can’t be rushed, I know,” replied Sunset impatiently. “Let’s just get it over with.”
Despite the look of displeasure on his face, the security guard grabbed the metal detecting wand and began his standard procedure. Sunset was cooperative enough that it took only a few minutes to complete that part of the security process. Finally, he strapped a green festival bracelet around Sunset’s wrist, scanned it with his phone, then gave the nod of approval to inform her that she was permitted to enter.
As soon as Sunset was finally allowed to pass, she immediately rushed through the gateway and ran a short distance to where the rest of her friends were waiting. “Whew… I thought it’d take me all day to get through there,” she remarked with relief.
Applejack chuckled in amusement and said, “Welp, y’all have fun seein’ PostCrush. We’ll see ya back at camp tonight.” And with that, everyone in the group went their separate ways to enjoy all the different shows and activities at this music festival they were each interested in, leaving behind only Sunset and Pinkie to prepare for the performance of PostCrush later that evening.
After the two of them took a moment to wave goodbye to their friends, Sunset pulled out her map of the festival grounds and pointed to certain locations on it as she explained, “Okay, main objective: get front row for PostCrush. Mission procedure: we cut around the Neon Garden to the main stage and rush the front during Pon Iver’s set. We can camp there until showtime, giving us the best outcome we could possibly ask for.”
Pinkie looked down at the map and listened to Sunset’s strategy, but as soon as her organized friend had finished describing the plan, something else nearby suddenly caught her attention. “Secondary objective: win a tandem bicycle!” exclaimed Pinkie excitedly before she suddenly rushed over to the giveaway booth with a purple tandem bicycle being displayed to the side.
“Pinkie!” objected Sunset, but with the party girl definitely not listening, she let out a sigh of frustration as she shoved the map back into her pocket and followed after her.
Pinkie stopped right in front of the giveaway booth and read the brief contest rules. As Sunset arrived, Pinkie pointed at a full jar of jellybeans on the booth’s counter and cheerfully said, “All I have to do is guess how many candies are in the jar, and my sugar senses say… three hundred and five!”
BZZZZ!
The giveaway booth attendant — a girl with lime green skin, magenta on her upper legs, purple and magenta vertical stripes on her torso, white on her upper arms, a magenta bowtie around her neck, and a short and straight teal hair piece with a tan boater hat on top — smacked the buzzer on the counter, indicating Pinkie’s guess was incorrect.
“Awww…” moaned Pinkie in disappointment.
“What about seeing PostCrush together?” begged Sunset with a look of frustration on her face.
“Uh, this bike has two seats, Sunset,” insisted Pinkie. “That’s one more than usual!”
Sunset crossed her arms and maintained her grumpy glare at the girl who had such a short attention span.
Pinkie rolled her eyes and conceded, “Fine, I’ll focus.” As her gaze turned away, she then suddenly gasped and excitedly exclaimed, “Oh, look! The Neon Garden!” She then immediately rushed towards the site of her latest distraction.
“Pinkie!” objected Sunset, but again her friend was too blissfully excited to bother listening to her. She let out a groan of frustration, then followed after Pinkie.
Pinkie squealed and giggled cheerfully as she rushed towards the entrance to the Neon Garden, which was a series of tall hedges with strings of glowing lights in various bright colors that were laid out along the hedges, the ground, and through the tunnels cut through some of the hedges. Some of these strings of lights were even arranged in some places along the hedges to resemble large flowers.
Sunset had no choice but to chase after Pinkie into the Neon Garden. As her friend continued to blissfully frolic around aimlessly, Sunset struggled to keep up and eventually had to pause for a moment to catch her breath. She took that moment to examine her surroundings and a crushing realization occurred to her. “The Neon Garden is a maze?!” she cried out in disbelief. She then facepalmed and grumbled, “Ugh, should’ve expected that from all these hedges…”
“WHEEEEEE!!” squealed Pinkie excitedly as she ran by along the path behind Sunset.
Sunset immediately turned back and rushed over to the intersection of the path she was on and the path Pinkie had been on. She looked both ways, but was unable to locate the energetic pink girl.
Pinkie giggled and snorted as she did cartwheels along another path behind Sunset.
Sunset spun around and rushed to the other end of the path she was on to reach the intersection with that other path. She looked both ways, but again found no signs of that party girl.
Behind Sunset, Pinkie suddenly hung upside down from the ceiling of the hedge tunnel and teasingly tapped the back of Sunset’s head before swiftly retreating back up into the hedge while snickering mischievously.
Sunset spun around again and once again failed to find any trace of her pesky friend. She growled and furiously shouted, “Pinkie! We don’t have time for this!”
Pinkie’s only response was yet more cheerful giggling from elsewhere in the Neon Garden.
Sunset rolled her eyes as she groaned and muttered, “It’s like trying to catch a wild animal…” As soon as that thought crossed her mind, she suddenly got an idea. First, she navigated her way through the Neon Garden, taking her nearly half an hour to eventually find the exit. Once she was finally out, she rushed all the way across the festival grounds over to where all the food trucks were parked and purchased a bag of candy, then quickly returned to the Neon Garden.
Sunset made her way back into the middle of the Neon Garden, where she heard persistent giggling that confirmed Pinkie was still frolicking around in here. Again, she tried to navigate her way around the maze, but with a moving target like Pinkie, she eventually realized she was never going to have any chance of reaching her. Instead, she took some time to study the paths through the maze and eventually discovered there was a loop around somewhere in the middle. With the day continuing to waste away, Sunset decided it was time to put her plan into action. She opened that bag of candy, then began to set a trail by dropping one piece of candy at a time, making sure to follow that course that looped around. When she completed the loop and saw the first pieces of candy she had dropped were now gone, she knew she finally had Pinkie’s attention. She adjusted the course of her candy trail to lead towards the exit, where she then dropped the bag and hid behind the side of the hedge entryway.
Only seconds later, Sunset saw Pinkie casually picking up the pieces of candy as she practically blindly followed the trail out of the Neon Garden. Just as Pinkie was about to grab the whole discarded bag, Sunset immediately jumped out of hiding and grabbed onto Pinkie’s arm. “Come on!” complained Sunset as she began to forcefully tug her friend away from the Neon Garden. “We’re gonna miss the show if you keep up this nonsense!”
“Awww…” moaned Pinkie sadly as she stumbled along to reluctantly follow after Sunset while looking back at that bag of candy on the ground.
Sunset firmly led the way directly to the main performance stage. Upon seeing the small crowd that had already begun to gather in front of it, she knew she and Pinkie were going to cut it very short, but as long as nothing else occurred along the way, they would still have a chance to secure that perfect spot up front from which to watch PostCrush later that evening. Alas, she failed to notice a pair of easels set up along the path, nor the nearby artist handling small balloons filled with some liquid.
“Who wants to be part of an art show?!” the artist — who had turquoise skin, olive green on his legs, medium blue on his torso and upper arms, a purple handkerchief around his neck, and a magenta afro hair piece — cheerfully called out as he held up two of those filled balloons.
Pinkie suddenly freed herself from Sunset’s grip and began waving her arms around as she excitedly replied, “Ooh! I do! I do!”
The artist turned to the two girls and smiled when he saw they were already standing between the two easels he had set up. “Ah, perfect!” he declared. “Stay right where you are…” He then pulled his arms back, preparing to toss the filled balloons in his hands.
“No! Don’t!” Sunset desperately protested.
The artist ignored Sunset’s plea and tossed the balloons at the easels, bursting upon impact and splattering paint all over the easels and the two girls, with pink paint on Pinkie on the left and blue paint on Sunset on the right.
Pinkie giggled and cheerfully cried, “Do it again!”
“NO!!” Sunset furiously shouted. She kicked over the easel next to her. “I never agreed to be part of this pathetic excuse for art!” She then firmly grabbed Pinkie’s wrist and began dragging her away. “C’mon, Pinkie! Let’s get cleaned up before our chance to watch PostCrush slips away.”
“Awww, but I was having fun!” whined Pinkie as she stumbled along behind Sunset.
“And if you keep getting distracted like this, we’ll never get to see PostCrush!” Sunset shot back as she tightened her grip on Pinkie’s wrist. “That’s the one reason why we’re even here in the first place, remember?!”
“Owie! Owie!” cried Pinkie from the painfully tight grip Sunset had on her hand. “Okay! I give!” She sighed and sadly conceded, “We’ll do things your way…”
“First thing’s first,” stated Sunset as she led Pinkie over to the public restrooms. “We gotta wash off all this paint.” She kicked open the door to the girls restroom, walked inside, and flung Pinkie towards the far end of the room. “And if we’re quick enough, we might still have a chance to get a decent spot to watch PostCrush.”
“Consider it done!” declared Pinkie with a smile. She then tore open one of the paper towel dispensers, removed the entire roll of paper towels, brought it with her into one of the toilet stalls, and shut the door.
Sunset was baffled by Pinkie’s method for cleaning paint off herself, but then just sighed and shook her head before turning her attention to the mirror and one of the sinks. She grabbed a paper towel, soaked it under the running water in the sink, and wiped it across one of the paint splatters on her body. Once that paper towel had soaked up as much of that paint as possible — which was actually not much at all — she tossed it into the trashcan, then grabbed another paper towel and repeated the process. With so much paint all over herself, and with how difficult all of it was proving to be to wash off, Sunset knew they were rapidly losing even more precious time that could’ve been saved had it not been for yet another moment of distraction by Pinkie.
As Sunset continued to clean herself, she remained very displeased and grumbled under her breath, “Stupid paint… stupid artist… stupid Neon Garden… stupid bicycle… stupid security… stupid Pinkie…” When that last one came out of her mouth, she quickly regretted thinking such a thing about someone who was, after all, one of her closest friends. She took a deep breath and slowly let it out in an effort to calm herself.
Splash!
That noise from the occupied toilet stall was immediately followed by some hysterical giggling from Pinkie. For Sunset, that swiftly brought her temper back up to the high point.
Pinkie partially opened the stall door and peeked her head out as she eagerly said, “Guess what! I spilled some paint on the inside of this door and it looks exactly like…” She threw the door all the way open to reveal the splattered paint on the other side of it. “Rarity with a pirate mustache! Huh? Huh?”
Objectively, Sunset had to admit the supposedly random mess did bear quite the uncanny resemblance to Rarity’s face with a bushy mustache slapped over the mouth. However, Sunset was not in the mood for any further antics from Pinkie, so she responded with nothing more than a flat stare.
With Sunset not reacting with any positivity, Pinkie shrugged and stated, “What? It’s washable.”
Sunset facepalmed and grumbled, “I’ve had just about enough of this.” Without another word, she swiftly reached into Pinkie’s fanny pack and began digging through its contents. She tossed out a trumpet, a spatula, a tire, a horseshoe magnet, and a rubber chicken before she finally pulled out a pair of handcuffs. She slapped one of the cuffs onto Pinkie’s wrist and the other cuff onto her own wrist, then placed the accompanying key into her pants pocket.
“There,” Sunset firmly declared with a frown. “No more getting separated. No more distractions. Now let’s get going.”
As Sunset started walking towards the door out of the restroom, Pinkie gave a salute and cheerfully responded, “You got it, Sun— Whoa!” She was yanked right behind Sunset to follow her out of the restroom.
Once they stepped outside, Sunset was astonished to see it was already starting to get dark. Did we really waste that much time already?! she thought in horror. Ugh, I knew I should’ve kept checking the time to make sure we were still on schedule.
“Wow!” remarked Pinkie with a smile. “I guess time really does fly by when you’re having fun!”
“No more time for fun!” Sunset shot back irritably as she rushed towards the main performance stage. It wasn’t long before she saw her worst fears were confirmed. A massive crowd of people had already gathered around in front of that stage, with very little room to maneuver through the middle of it all. The sight of it quickly discouraged Sunset, but after everything she had been through today, she grew more determined than ever. No! she thought firmly. I’ve come too far to give up now!
“Hurry, Pinkie!” Sunset spoke up urgently. “They’re about to go on! We’ll have to push to the front row! Come on!” She gave no apologies at all as she started shoving her way through the middle of the crowd, much to the annoyance of everyone she bumped into.
“Hey! What’s the big idea?”
“Watch it, buddy!”
“Ow! My foot!”
“Hey, I’m standin’ here!”
Pinkie gave no resistance as Sunset pulled her along. However, once they were only halfway through the crowd, she suddenly began to smell a rather sweet and delicious aroma. As she continued sniffing the air, she turned her gaze back and gasped when she saw Puffed Pastry — a certain chef she had previously encountered on that unfortunate cruise from a few months ago — giving out a very special baked good from her food cart. “Puffed Pastry’s exclusive star-crusted, cinnamon-dipped churros!” exclaimed Pinkie, already drooling at the sight those delicious treats.
Another yank from the handcuffs that attached her to Sunset snapped Pinkie out of her dessert daydream. She shook her head and firmly declared, “No! I will not give in!” She tried to allow Sunset to guide her through the crowd, but her resolve crumbled only one second later as she took another glance back at the churro cart. “Ooh, I can’t resist!” she squealed excitedly as she suddenly turned back and began to charge towards the churro cart.
As soon as Pinkie began her attempt to run off, Sunset felt the tug on the handcuffs holding them together and immediately dug her heels into the ground in a desperate effort to hold back her energetic friend. “This is the worst possible time for churros, Pinkie!” protested Sunset. Although she was able to significantly slow Pinkie’s progress, they were still surrounded by a dense crowd of minifigs, so all it took was one minor and accidental nudge from one of them to cause Sunset to suddenly lose her footing and get flung up into the air as Pinkie was now free to rush at the churro cart.
Pinkie was so narrowly focused on grabbing some of those churros that she never noticed what happened to Sunset, nor did she ever consider the consequence of the fact they were still handcuffed together. Pinkie abruptly stopped right in front of that churro cart, but with Sunset still being flung along behind her, that momentum caused her to uncontrollably slam into the unaware party girl, causing both of them to then slam into the cart, smashing it to pieces and sending cinnamon dust flying everywhere.
Sunset and Pinkie were both momentarily dazed from the impact. When they recovered, they both noticed a shadow looming over them. They looked over their shoulders and saw the security guard from the front entrance was now standing before them with his arms crossed, a scowl on his face, and his head and torso covered in cinnamon dust.
Pinkie giggled nervously and sheepishly said, “Our bad.”
“More like your bad,” grumbled Sunset as she glared at Pinkie. “This wouldn’t have happened if you had just listened to me for once.”
The security guard wasn’t interested in hearing any excuses. He grabbed the two girls by the shoulder and hauled them up to their feet, then began forcefully escorting them towards a doorway in the wall that marked the perimeter of the festival grounds. Once they arrived at that door, he removed their festival bracelet pieces, used a pair of scissors to snip them in half, and dropped the destroyed parts to the ground. Finally, he opened the door, shoved both girls outside, and then slammed the door shut.
Sunset and Pinkie were now suddenly faced with the shut door with a decal of a warning message stuck on it that read, “EXIT ONLY! Trespassers will be tackled on sight.” Both of them lowered their gazes to the ground in sadness, but then Sunset glared sideways at Pinkie, who shamefully recoiled in response.
Suddenly, the two banished girls saw above the wall some bright lights shining up into the sky from the direction of the main performance stage while an amplified voice in the distance shouted out, “Let me hear three big cheers for two best friends who got back together for one incredible night! PoooooostCruuuuuush!!” That announcement was immediately followed by a roaring cheer and applause from the crowd that the two girls were so close to being part of.
Pinkie tried to silently assure her friend by placing a hand on Sunset’s shoulder, but Sunset smacked her friend’s hand away. Sunset reached into her pants pocket and pulled out the key to the handcuffs that still held the two of them together. Once she unlocked and removed the cuff on her wrist, she tossed the key to Pinkie and began to walk off towards the campgrounds.
Pinkie was at a loss as she glanced back and forth between the key she had just caught in her hand and Sunset walking off without saying a word. Her attention soon turned to the concert they were missing out on when she heard PostCrush beginning to play their famous song. Realizing there was no point in staying here, she sighed sadly as she used the key to remove the cuff from her wrist, then tossed both items to the ground before she turned away from the door and slowly walked off after Sunset.
Later that evening, Sunset and Pinkie returned to their RV in the campgrounds, where the rest of their friends were seated around the heating table and roasting marshmallows over it. As they walked, Sunset had her gaze down at the ground with a sullen look on her face, while Pinkie cautiously followed close behind with a shameful expression on her face.
Rainbow Dash placed her roasted marshmallow on a graham cracker and removed it from the skewer she held when she noticed the arrival of Sunset and Pinkie. “There they are!” she spoke up eagerly as the others also turned to their two friends. “Two peas in a pod! How was it? Rad-tacular? Amaze-magic?”
Sunset growled as she crossed her arms and looked away from her friends.
The others looked at each other uneasily before Applejack cautiously asked, “Uh, what’s wrong?”
Sunset sighed and sadly replied, “We missed PostCrush.” He voice gradually grew angrier as she continued, “Someone wanted to win a bike, then got us lost in a maze, covered in paint, sidelined by churros, and finally, kicked out!”
Fluttershy gasped and worriedly muttered, “Oh dear…”
“I’m really sorry, Sunset,” responded Pinkie remorsefully. In an effort to try to stay positive, she placed her hand on Sunset’s shoulder and added, “I wish we could do the day all over again. I’d do it differently.”
Sunset smacked Pinkie’s hand off her shoulder and grumbled, “Me, too.” She turned and began to walk away from the group. “I’d do it alone…”
Pinkie felt especially hurt by that statement, and began to make another attempt to reach out to Sunset.
“Pinkie, darling,” Rarity spoke up. “Perhaps you should just leave her be for the moment.”
“I concur,” agreed Twilight. “It sounds like she’s had a very rough day. Trust me, it’s best that you let her have some time to herself to cool off.”
“I’m sure she’ll forgive you later,” added Spike with a smile. Just then, the marshmallow he was roasting suddenly caught on fire. He yelped in panic and started waving the skewer around in an effort to put out the fire. Instead, the smoldering treat flung off the skewer and splattered against Rarity, who yelled out in horror at seeing her expensive jacket ruined by the gooey mess.
Under normal circumstances, Pinkie would have laughed at seeing such silly antics among her friends, but the guilt of having ruined what should’ve been the best day ever for both her and Sunset left her reacting with little more than a sad sigh.
Sunset had wandered around aimlessly until she eventually found herself on a hilltop overlooking the festival grounds. From this vantage point, although she could see the bright lights from the main performance stage, the conifer trees of the surrounding forest obscured her view of most of the stage. Not to mention that at this distance, she could barely hear any noise from the performance, let alone identify whatever song was being played right now. Sunset reluctantly pulled out her phone to check the time and, as she had feared, the end of the scheduled time for when PostCrush was due to perform had already come and gone.
Sunset shoved her phone back into her pocket and sat down upon the hilltop. She felt really hurt that she missed out on the one thing she had been most looking forward to for the entire music festival, and even more so that she would not be allowed back onto the festival grounds for the remainder of the event tomorrow. As she held her knees close to her chest, she lowered her head down and began to sob. I really wish I could have another chance to watch PostCrush, she thought solemnly.
Boom. Whoosh!
With her gaze turned down, Sunset failed to notice the burst of light that suddenly erupted from somewhere out in the middle of the forest. That burst was immediately followed by a shockwave that quickly spread out across a large area in the woods, though not large enough to reach even the nearest edge of the festival grounds. However, Sunset was close enough to the epicenter for that glowing shockwave to pass through her — a sensation she definitely felt.
“Huh?” muttered Sunset in confusion as she suddenly turned her head up and glanced around. The burst of light had lasted so briefly that by the time she looked up, it was already gone. She cautiously stood up and continued to look around, but still saw nothing out of the ordinary.
Sunset once again pulled out her phone to check the time, then sighed as she put her phone away again. It was starting to get rather late, so she decided it was probably best to return to the RV and get ready for bed. She had no idea what she could possibly do tomorrow that could make up for today’s complete disaster, but she knew she would have to come to terms with the fact that it was all in the past now, and there was nothing she could do to change it. It’s not like reality had a reset button, after all…