//------------------------------// // Special: Rollercoaster of Friendship PT3 // Story: Flash Sentry's EQG Chronicles // by Banshee531 //------------------------------// Iron panted as he ran through the park, having split up from Applejack after seeing what happened to Rainbow. Applejack had headed off to warn her friends about Vignette while Iron had agreed to be backup. Since it was possible Vignette could end up trapping them all in her phone, they agreed everyone who knew about her evil deeds had to remain separated so that if one should fall, another could pick up the task of stopping her. "Where are they?" He asked as he kept running, only to see a certain four by a bench. Heather and First turned to see Iron, Heart and Soul also spinning around to see him, "There you are," Heather said as she waved at him, "Have you seen Flash?" "He went to take a phone call and disappeared," Heart added, Iron grimacing at their questions. "It's a good thing we ran into Heather and First," Soul continued, "Or else Twilight and Sunset wouldn't have been able to go to their dress rehearsal." "We've got problems," Iron replied as he got up to them, "Magical problems." Heather and First's eyes went wide while Heart and Soul frowned. They were still getting used to the whole 'magic is real' thing, so hearing what Iron said next made them shake, "That woman, Vignette. Her phone is...magical. Applejack and I saw her zap Rainbow Dash away and I'm pretty sure she did the same thing to Flash and Fluttershy." "That does not sound good," First replied, "What do we do?" "Applejack's going to warn the others," Iron responded, "But if Vignette manages to beat them and zap them all away, it'll be up to us to save them." "Us?!" Soul yelped, "What do you expect us to do?! We don't have any magic!" "Yeah, I know. That's why we gotta hope Applejack and the others can find a way to beat her." They nodded and all began to head to the area where the dress rehearsal would be taking place. In the white void, Flash was walking around as Rainbow spoke up, "You're wasting your time, man." He turned to Rainbow, who was picking at the salad she and Fluttershy were sitting around. "If this is anything like that mirror, walking in one direction's just gonna lead you back here." "Maybe..." Flash began to walk forward, "But it can't hurt to look. They may seem the same, but maybe its-aah!" He staggered back, having felt himself run into something hard. "Ow." He held his nose and reached out, feeling a hard wall-like surface. "See? This isn't like the mirror. This place has walls." "Oh dear," Fluttershy curled herself up. "I think I'm starting to get claustrophobia." Rainbow sighed and picked herself up as Flash started following the wall. "So what's the plan?" She asked as Flash found a corner, "So this place has walls. That's not gonna help us." "If it has walls, that means there has to be someone on the other side of the wall." Flash knocked, "Maybe we're in a magical app. If we can find a way to break through this wall, maybe we'll end up in another app on the phone." "I hope it's something calming," Fluttershy gulped, "Like Cupcake Smash. That always calms Pinkie down when she gets hyperactive." Flash nodded, though he was hoping to get into the messaging app so he could message his friends. Iron and the others quickly got to where the parade was being set up, only to see a door fly open as Applejack stormed out. "Hey!" First yelled as he ran after the girl with Heather. "Applejack!" As they left, Iron turned to the open door and went inside, Heart and Soul following as they heard Pinkie's voice call out Rarity's name. They then spotted Vignette and Iron grabbed the twins, pulling them behind a float as the woman spoke to Twilight, Pinkie and Sunset. "Waiting is for waiters, ladies." She grabbed Pinkie and pulled her up close, "We're better off without her." "We?!" Twilight asked as Vignette smiled. "The Throwbacks," she replied as she poked Pinkie's nose. "Formerly known as the Rainbooms." "Hang on," Sunset stepped up and pulled Pinkie out of her grasp. "Why does 'we' include you?" "Obviously, somebody needs to fill Applejuice's spot." Vignette danced around, "And since it's so last-minute, we are lucky to have someone with as much vision and talent as moi." "Uh...you?" Pinkie slowly asked. "And not just that! We'll be playing a song I wrote!" "That woman has her head in the clouds," Heart muttered. "That's what happens when someone gets constant praise for every little thing," Iron sighed, "It creates a person who thinks any idea that pops into their head is a good idea. Zero filter." "Okay," they heard Sunset speak, "One, you are not in the band! And two, we are not performing without Applejack!" "Which is her name, by the way!" Pinkie crossed her arms, "Not 'Applejuice'." "And you know what?" Twilight added, "She's not usually one to make things up, like, ever." "So all that stuff she said about you..." Sunset continued as she glared at Vignette, the girl now using her phone to check her hairdo. "Eh, is true." With that, she held up the phone and unleashed a beam of light that overcame the girls. The others gasped as they watched the three get sucked inside, Vignette smiling as she fiddled with the screen. "Now let's see if this Equestrian magique is all it's cracked up to be." She tapped and swiped and did a bunch more things before smiling. "Now then. That's better." She hit something and in a flash, a goth rocker version of Fluttershy appeared. "Whoa..." Iron's eyes went wide at the sight, only for the girl to flicker and glow the way he had seen movie holograms do. "Oh...right. Not real." He whispered, "But dang she looks good..." Vignette then summoned a puffy dress wearing Rainbow, an eighties clothes wearing Twilight, a georgian dress wearing Sunset and a business suit wearing Pinkie with horribly straight hair. "I wish I'd had this thing years ago!" Vignette cheered as the door behind her opened with a very upset Rarity stepping through. "Think how perfect my life could've looked!" She then turned to Rarity and pulled her up close with a squeal. "Rare, you're not gonna believe this!" She pointed at the fake Rainbooms. "What? What is this? What am I looking at?" "Your friends, but better!" Vignette giggled, "Now we can make the parade exactly how I want it!" "How you want it?!" She pulled away from her, "You said you hired me for my vision!" Vignette shrugged, "Well, I needed your vision to bring out my vision. But now there's an app for that." Rarity turned back to the Rainbooms and tried to touch Fluttershy, only for her hand to phase through her leg. "Vignette, wh-what is going on here?" She turned to her boss, "Where are my friends?!" "She zapped them away!" They both turned to see Heart, Soul and Iron run over, "She did something with her phone and they all vanished!" Heart added, "I saw it with my own eyes." Rarity turned to Iron, who nodded before they all glared at Vignette. "Caught me," she smiled, "I don't know how, but my phone became magique or something, and now it has this power where whenever I take a picture of something and it disappears. And then I can customize them with a swipe of my finger and make them real again, or...real enough, but hey, blah-blah-blah, O.M.G., I'm boring myself to death just talking about this stuff." Throughout the entire conversation, Rarity felt a flurry of emotions. Anger at Vignette for what she had done, anger at herself for letting her vision cloud her into not seeing something was wrong, and guilt for not believing Applejack. "Bring back my friends this instant!" Vignette just smirked as she walked up to her, "Fine. If you wanna be with them so bad, I'll do you one last favor." She held up the phone and hit the button, "You're welcome." The phone unleashed a bright light, Rarity letting out a scream as it did. Flash and the others were all sitting together, Twilight letting out a moan, "I can't believe we're trapped in Vignette's phone." "Eh, we're no strangers to getting stuck in magical objects," Rainbow chimed in. "At least this is only the second time you've been held captive," Flash grumbled as he continued to knock at the walls. "Any idea how we get out of here?" "None that don't involve twenty pounds of plutonium and a paper clip," Twilight then turned to Pinkie and appeared to be expecting her to pull those items out of her hair...but she just shook her head. "At least Rarity and Applejack are still free," Sunset added, "Maybe they can get us out of here." "They have to stop fighting first," Fluttershy whispered as Twilight picked herself up. "We can't just sit around hoping to get rescued. If we're in the internet, we can hack our way out! Well, I can. Maybe." "Oh," Fluttershy quivered, "I hope Rarity and Applejack are okay. I wish we knew what's going on out there." Vignette smiled at the picture she had just taken. "Sorry, Rare, guess you're not so 'rare' after all." But then she looked back up and saw Rarity, Iron and the twins were still there. "Okay, that was your cue to disappear!" She tried again, but this time she watched as Rarity held up her hand and created a diamond shield. The light struck the shield and the two magics appeared to cancel each other out, leaving the four unharmed. "Hmmm," Rarity clutched her geode, "Never underestimate a good accessory!" She then walked around, the others following her as Vignette stepped in the opposite direction with annoyance. She fired another beam, but it was also cancelled out. "Stop un-magique-ing my magique thingy!" She fired again, but it was blocked once more. "I can't believe I listened to you over Applejack!" Rarity yelled as she fired several small gems at Vignette, not hurting her, but making her flinch long enough for them to all to run past her and out of the room. "Hey!" Vignette yelped when she opened her eyes and saw they were gone. "U-G-H! Whatevs!" She turned away, "I don't need you anyway. Attention, people who work for me!" This seemed to make all the workers appear out of nowhere, the group circling around her. "I am now the lead costume designer because our former lead costume designer is being H.B.W. Herself, but worse! Now pretend I just gave you an inspiring speech and GET BACK TO WORK" They quickly ran off, leaving a rather stressed Vignette to pant. Meanwhile... Applejack, First and Heather were now walking through the park. First and Heather had managed to calm Applejack down after her altercation with Rarity, but she was still annoyed with her friend. But as the sun began to set, they noticed many people were beginning to run to the parade. "The parade's about to start!" Applejack gasped before groaning, "If only a'd done somethin' or said somethin' different! Maybe none of this woulda happened." She let out a sigh, "Ah really screwed things up with Rarity." First and Heather were about to try and comfort her, only for Rarity to call out, "APPLEJACK!" They turned to see her, Iron and the twins running toward them. "Rarity?!" Applejack gasped. "Don't go!" Rarity cried before panting, getting her breath back as Applejack tried to say something. "You were right." She interrupted, "I got carried away and let this stupid parade become the only thing that mattered to me!" Applejack smiled at this as Rarity added, "And I let Vignette manipulate me with false flattery into forgetting what really matters. My friends." "Come on, now." Applejack put a hand on her shoulder, "Your talent puts you so far beyond the need for flattery." Rarity blushed at this, but pushed her hand off her shoulder. "Stop flattering me! I've not finished apologizing!" She took a breath, "I'm sorry I lost sight of why we applied for jobs here in the first place." "And I'm sorry ah got jealous," Applejack replied, "All this time ah thought I was bein' honest with you about not likin' Vignette. Ah wasn't bein' honest with mahself. I felt like I was losin' my best friend." Rarity grabbed Applejack's hand. "You didn't. Caramel apple girls to the end?" Applejack nodded and they both hugged. "Aww..." Heather and Soul giggled as Iron rolled his eyes. "Cute moment, but now isn't the time." This made Rarity gasp. "Our friends!" She cried, "Vignette has them all trapped in the internet! She confessed! We have to get them out! We have to save them!" "What?!" Applejack yelped, "We've been wastin' all this time chin-waggin' about feelin's?! We need to get crackin' on a rescue plan!" But as she said that, her phone rang and she pulled it out to see who was calling. "Twilight?" She answered and heard Twilight's voice. "It worked!" The girl cheered, "Applejack, we're stuck in Vignette's phone! I found a way to hack her apple popper app to route a VoIP connection to your IP address!" "Uh..." Applejack slowly said, "Magic. Got it." "Listen. We've come up with a plan to set all this right." She started explaining a bunch of techno-babble, Applejack getting lost after word three. She sighed and stepped away from the others to hear better, trying to make sense of Twilight's explanation. "That should get us out of here! How much coding do you know?" "Uh, none." Applejack put it on speaker and kept walking. "Uh, I can rub two sticks together." "Oh boy..." When Twilight said that, Applejack suddenly heard two voices. "Okay. Get a pencil." Again, the voice was doubled. One was coming from the phone another was coming from...someplace close. "Uh, hang on." Applejack listened, "I think I can hear you talkin'." "What?" It was coming from Applejack's right. "S-Somewhere close." She turned in that direction and saw a small building about the size of standard living room, which she carefully walked up to and found a door. She reached out and pulled it open, blinking at the amount of white her eyes were bombarded with. When they adjusted, she looked ahead and saw her friends and a salad inside the room. "Really, y'all?" The previously trapped teens look at one another, clearly embarrassed they hadn't realized that in the first place. "Ohhhhhh," Twilight said, "The phone just teleported us into some random white room in the park." She blushed as Sunset frowned while Rarity and the others stepped into the room. "We were just sitting in a white room the whole time?!" "Wait," Pinkie asked, "You guys didn't know that?" Sunset's face slowly turned from orange to red, the girl clearly ready to blow her top. But before she could, a flash of light signaled the arrival of another classmate of theirs. "Micro Chips?!" Twilight yelped when she saw her fellow techie before gasping, "Did Vignette take your picture just now?" The teen was still a little disorientated, Flash wondering what the heck he was doing there and why he was dressed in an apple covered shirt and carrying a caramel apple...oh. "I was just minding my own business, making perfect caramel apples, when suddenly, Vignette saw me and said I wasn't as cool a nerd as she thought. Then she took my picture, and I ended up here, violating all known laws of space and time." "Relax dude," Flash chimed in, "You'll be fine." "Now hang on guys, this is bad! It means Vignette is on the parade route, and she's using her phone to change whatever she doesn't like!" Sunset exclaimed. "Oh no! What happens if she decides she doesn't like the crowd?" Fluttershy added, the group gulping at this. "Everyone in the park is watching that parade!" Twilight gasped, "If her phone teleports that many people into this tiny room at the same time...!" "Squish city!" Pinkie cried. "Our friends are in that crowd!" Rarity then gasped, "Sweetie Belle is in that crowd!" Flash then realized Scootaloo was also in that crowd, along with a bunch of people from school he knew. "We've got to stop her!" Applejack turned to Rarity, "You do realize if we stop the parade, no one will see all your hard work." Rarity seemed to falter, only to shake her head. "Someone reminded me that none of that matters without my friends." Applejack smiled at this, only for Sunset to chime in, "We'd better hurry! I'm sure Vignette's getting more corrupted by Equestrian magic every minute!" "Then what are we waiting for?" Flash asked before rushing out the room, the others following. They headed for the parade route and as they did, they heard Vignette's terrible singing voice fill the air. "Augh! What is that?!" "I think that's the song she wrote," Twilight gulped as she went high pitched and they all flinched. They reached the crowd and saw the float that Vignette and her holo-Rainbooms were on. They also heard the crowd booing at the terrible song and ridiculous outfits their school's favorite band were wearing. "We need to hurry!" Rarity yelled, "I'm willing to bet Vignette's seconds away from using her phone." And as they tried to find a way through the crowd, Flash turned to Applejack. He grabbed the girl's arm and channeled his geode's power, "Ready?" She nodded and Flash spun her around, picking up speed before throwing her over the crowd. The girl braced herself as she reached the other side, rolling along the ground in front of Vignette's float. The woman didn't notice Applejack, too upset with the crowd's poor response to her genius. "Say cheese everyone." She was about to take a picture, only to suddenly find the front of the float being lifted up. Knocking her off balance, the crowd gasped as the other quickly made their way through the crowd. And once Vignette realized who was lifting up her float, she heard Rarity speak up. "Sorry to rain on your parade!" Applejack dropped the float and smiled at her. "Nice one!" Rarity nodded back before focusing on Vignette. "I'm afraid this evening is cancelled. Now turn off your phone and hand it over!" This caused the crowd to start murmuring, the twins and Royal Knights running through the crowd, telling everyone they knew from school to get out of there. The CHS students quickly realized what must have been going on and started getting away as Vignette pushed herself back to her feet. "Are you honestly asking a social media star to hand over her phone?!" Gasps came from the remainder of the crowd as Applejack smirked. "Yeah. She is." Vignette rolled her eyes. "Rarity, this is the version of your friends that will be popular. I have the metrics to back that up." The two girls rolled their eyes at this, "Doesn't matter if they're real. It's what you show people online. This is your chance to be everything you've always wanted!" "No!" Rarity proclaimed, "It's a chance to look like everything I've always wanted! What I really want has been right in front of me the whole time!" She turned to Applejack, "My friends!" Applejack smiled back and they grasped hands, the rest of the team doing the same. Their geodes glowed and one by one, all transforming into their super-powered pony forms. "Wow," the twins whispered as they saw this, Vignette just gasping as they all flew into the air. "No amount of online success is worth it without my real life friends to share in it!" Rarity announced as the others smiled and began channeling their powers to her. Once the energy flowed into her, Rarity let go of the others and smiled as the magic flowed to her hand. She then swung her arm, the magic forming a shining whip-like weapon that the cracked in Vignette's direction. The whip shot up to the woman, Vignette holding up her phone to try and teleporting it away. But before she could, the end of the whip pierced the phone and forced her to drop it. She gasped as she saw her phone hit the ground and glow, the magic within leaking out and vanished. She then looked back at the holograms as they fizzled out of existence. "What have you done?!" She cried as the teens floated down, "Now how can things ever be perfect?!" Rarity shook her head, "I love nothing more than someone telling me I made a perfect outfit, but I'd say you got a bit carried away." Vignette, the corruption of the magic likely beginning to fade, thought about what she had said, "I-I...guess so." "You guess so?!" Applejack yelped, "You created virtual holograms of our friends and almost sent an entire crowd of people to squish city!" The returning crowd heard this and murmured their disapproval, Vignette grimacing at the sight. "But...but...B.Y.B.B! Its-" "It's not a bad thing to want to be better," Rarity interrupted, "But not at the expense of other people. And especially not your friends." "Friends?!" Vignette sighed, "I have three million followers, but no real friends." She looked away and crossed her arms, "How pathetic is that?" Rarity shook her head, "You've got one. If you want." Vignette glanced back at her and Rarity hold out a hand before Applejack stepped up to her. "Make that two." Vignette smiled and took Rarity's hand as the crowd around them began to cheer and applaud. "Why are they clapping?" Pinkie asked, "Do they even know what's going on?" "Eh," Fluttershy shrugged as Rainbow took out her phone. "Whoa!" She showed Pinkie, "The Rainbooms are trending on Snapgab!" "People are saying that rainbow laser thing was the coolest light parade show they've ever seen!" Pinkie read before turning to the crowd and saw they were taking pictures and sharing them, Applejack smiling. "Hey, maybe the parade ain't ruined after all!" Sunset then smirked as she looked over at their instruments that Vignette had somehow gotten for them. "We do still have our real instruments up there." Rainbow turned to Fluttershy, "You're not too nervous?" "I should ask you the same thing," Fluttershy giggled as Rainbow jokingly elbowed her. Rarity turned to Applejack, "If you're up for it." Applejack nodded and Flash leapt off the stage while the girls began one of their best songs. The crowd cheered as Flash joined his friends, the look applauding the girls as they all thought about their time at the amusement park. Later, Vignette would give them all access year passes that they decided to use the very next day. This time the group stayed together, Rainbow winning a parakeet at the Flim Flam Brother's booth while the rest enjoyed a bunch more rides. Rarity even got to go on a little fashion show to unveil some of the costumes she didn't get to show in the parade. Of course she was nervous, but Applejack was there to keep her calm. The day would end with them stuffing themselves into a photo booth, attempting to all look dignified, but the sheer amount of people caused a lot of tripping and fumbling over one another. It was awesome and the photos they got would stay with them forever. No doubt, their adventures in Equestria Land would be something none of them would ever forget.