The final bell for the day rang as Sunset gathered her books and made her way to her locker. The gossip of the school was still the mysterious forum that suddenly appeared. Once she reached her locker, Sunset's frown deepened as she took out her phone and opened up the forum. The last post was published decades ago on the forum. Why would someone reactivate it for no reason?
'Magic or not, This is a mystery I have to solve.' Sunset locked her phone and put it back in her pocket before closing her locker. She turned to leave when she saw an unfamiliar face among the students. The face belonged to a girl her age, with dark blue, long hair in a ponytail. She had light gray skin. She was dressed a little bit formally with a pair of glasses. From where Sunset stood, the girl was a good head smaller than her.
"Hey, excuse me?" Sunset called the girl as she looked up at her. "Are you… Aiko, by any chance?"
"O-oh, hi. Yes, I'm Aiko Whiskers. A pleasure to meet you," She said, bowing a little.
"I'm Sunset Shimmer. Nice to meet you too," Sunset said, noting the way the girl greeted her. "Are you… Japanese?" She asked.
"Okaasan (mother) is."
"Ah, I see. Buchou (boss) at my part-time job has a Japanese heritage too. So uh… are you in any club?"
"Not yet. I didn't choose yet. I was at the photography club in my previous school, though."
"Ah yea, Aun- I-I mean, Vice-Principal Luna told me you are a great photographer. I'm going to reopen the newspaper club, and I was wondering if you wanted to join the club?"
"Newspaper club?" She looked down in quiet thought as she shifted her feet. "Um… sure. I can take pictures of the articles that are written for the club. And I like to write too. It's kinda fun to write."
"Great. You know where the music room is, right?" Aiko nodded. "Can you meet me there tomorrow before school starts?"
"I suppose I can do that," Aiko said.
"Great. I'll see you there tomorrow."
"Sunset-san Ja ne (see you)," Aiko said, bowing a little.
"Ja ne Aiko-san," Sunset did the same. Aiko smiled at her. As she walked around the corner, she turned around to wave bye to Aiko, but she was gone. "Uh, that's weird. Shoot, I forgot about band practice." With That, Sunset ran to the music rooms to avoid an annoyed Rainbow. Sunset loved Rainbow, but she was a pain sometimes. Rainbow could be late to band practice, and that was fine, but the second anyone else was late, they wouldn't hear the end of it.
Sunset quickly made her way to the music room to meet with her friends for the band practice. All her friends were already there, tuning their instruments when they looked up at her.
"Hey Sunset, so did you ask your mom about the forum?" Rainbow asked.
"Yeah, I did. And there's a real spooky story behind the club too," Sunset said, picking up her guitar and tuning it.
"Ooohhh! Spooky story. Tell me, tell me, tell me," Pinkie said, bouncing in place.
"Well, the forum belongs to a newspaper club that was closed a decade and a half ago. According to mom, three students were in that club, and one of them, a girl, went missing. Since then, the club disbanded to this day."
"Oh-oh! Maybe that missing girl's ghost came back to get revenge on the people that murdered her," Pinkie said in a spooky voice.
"First of all, no one knows what happened to her. And secondly, I've never seen ghosts even in a world filled with magic," Sunset said.
"Oh bummer," Pinkie said, deflating a little.
"So, what are you going to do now?" Twilight asked.
"I was thinking about reopening the club. Mom thinks it's Equestrian magic. So if it is, we can stop it without including the whole of school like the past couple of times. Or it might just be some guy hacking into the school. So who wants to join the club?"
"I'm in," Rainbow said, jumping up.
"You sure, Rains? The last time Ah check, you're in pretty much every sports club the school offers. You sure you got time for that?" Applejack said. "Plus, it's a club for writing articles all day. Ah don't know about you, but that's a big no for me, not to mention Ah've got chores at the farm, so Ah don't get much free time."
"Uh… on second thoughts, maybe not. But if any ghosts need some butt-kicking, I'm in, okay?"
"I'll join you. It'll be fun. Perhaps I can publish my finding on all of your magic. I'm very good at writing my scientific findings in articles," Twilight said.
"Sorry darling, I'm much too busy making dresses. Not to mention that I'm already in the yearbook club on top of the designers club. Adding a third one is simply impossible. I don't think I can afford the time. I barely make time for these practices. A young designer, like yours truly like me, needs some free time to think of new designs and simply relax. I'm sure you understand, darling," Rarity said.
"Me too, me too- wait," Pinkie said before pulling out a note pad from her hair and flipping through it. Sunset looked at what's in the notepad and saw a lot of doodles of cakes, balloons, and streamers with a lot of names.
"Uh… you know, Pinkie, maybe you already have a lot on your plate," Sunset said.
"What? But I was hoping to give the sad ghosty a nice party to cheer her up,"
"Don't worry, Pinkie, if any ghost needs any parties, I'll be sure to tell you."
"Yay, I wonder what ghosts like at parties."
"Um… I-I'll join too," Fluttershy said softly.
"Great, That gives us four members. Let's begin the work tomorrow, shall we?" Sunset said. The rest of the girls looked at her, confused.
"Uh… darling, there's only three," Rarity said.
"Oh yeah, sorry. We have a new student. I asked her if she likes to join, and she said yes. She'll meet us tomorrow here," Sunset said.
"Oh, you mean Aiko!" Pinkie shouted. "I met her before. She's a really nice girl, quiet though."
"Uh… Sunset? You sure it's okay to invite her?"
"Yeah, why not? She's going to know about all this sooner or later. Everyone in this school knows about magic now. Since she's new in the city, we can help her to get used to things," Sunset said. "Plus, the more, the merrier. Plus, she's a great photographer. She can take pictures of our articles."
The rest of the girls nodded.
"If you are sure," Twilight said.
"Enough of about spooky forums and clubs, we have music to play and the rest of your trip to tell," Pinkie said, changing the subject.
"Okay, okay, Pinkie, we'll practice, then I'll tell the rest of the story," Sunset said smiling.
The rest of the day went relatively peacefully with no incident as Sunset and Fluttershy told the girls the rest of the story and played some music. Before leaving, Sunset went to Luna and asked where the newspaper club room was located, and she guided her to a door that Sunset didn't even know existed. Despite Sunset's insistent, Luna said she'll ask the janitor to clean the room for them to use the next day. Before long, the nightfall came, and Sunset found herself sitting at the dinner table with her mom, sister, and aunt.
"Snowdrop, did Ari make any trouble at school today?" Sunset asked.
"No. Unlike Spike, she's a Cockatoo. They are known for their speaking ability." Snowdrop said. One of the things they found out was that Ari kept the ability to talk fluidly since the trip to Equestria.
"Huh, good for her."
"Oh, Sunset, did you met the new girl?" Celestia asked.
"Yeah, I did. She's really nice and part Japanese." Sunset said.
"Didn't I tell you that?" Luna asked. Sunset shook her head. "Perhaps it slipped my mind."
"And she said she'll join the club."
"Oh, that's wonderful. So are you going to tell her about magic?"
"Yeah, why not? Everyone knows about magic by now. I wouldn't go in-depth about where I come from, of course. I don't even know her well. But she seems like a really kind girl. Maybe in the future, I'll tell her everything about me," Sunset said.
Dinner went by normally as everyone talked about their day. After dinner, Sunset finished what little homework she had before she started to play some games to pass the time, and before long, she got ready to sleep. But as she climbed the bed to call it a night, she received a notification.
"What the?" Sunset said as she looked in disbelief at the latest post in the newspaper club forum.
Admin –
Tell us about any mysterious stories, strange incidents, or scary rumors that you know about!
The Newspaper Club will find the truth!
Something you want to investigate or something that stumps you anything at all is welcomed!
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