The Great Crusade

by TheGJ90

Prologue Part #2 - The Song

It wasn't long before the three of us started spending time with Sunset Shimmer whenever we could. We did lots of fun things together: Hanging out at the mall with the rest of the Rainbooms, helping Apple Bloom and her sister around the farm, enjoying movies, watching Scootaloo perform tricks with Rainbow Dash, and anything else we could come up with. I guess we were making up for lost time, which was fine by me.

Sunset deserved to have a lot of fun with her friends.

Although we were finally connecting with that girl, that we were not as afraid of hurting her again as we were before, something still felt... off. Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, and I were talking about exactly that in the clubhouse one day. AB, as expected from our leader, was leading the discussion from her podium;

"Look ya'll, our talk with Sunset last week got me thinkin'...", she began with a serious glare. Scoots and I kept our attention locked on her as she went on;

"We wanna move forward from that foolhardy mistake we made a while back, right?"

It was a trick question and we all knew it. I nodded my head alongside Scootaloo instantly, prompting Apple Bloom to do the same and continue;

"Well, all we were doin' before last week was pushin' folks away. Not just her, but the other students too."

She groaned a little before adding out of annoyance while gritting her teeth;

"Siren magic makin' us act like fools aside!"

"We talked with our sisters though! You know, before those Dazzlings messed with our heads.", I quickly noted. She responded with a quick nod before Scootaloo chimed in happily;

"Yeah, because we love our sisters too much to push them away!"

We all smiled at the thought of the three girls who were always there for us before Apple Bloom admitted with a chuckle;

"Yeah, we were talkin' with them before we all turned plum crazy, our families too when we were at home. Other than that..."

Her grin gave way to a frown before declaring;

"We've been keepin' Wondercolts at arms length... too afraid of hurtin' them to give them anythin' more than small talk..."

Without warning, she slammed her right fist on top the podium, causing Scootaloo and I to back up a step out of shock! She then exclaimed with the kind of frustration that I always knew could come from her mouth;

"Well, Ah ain't movin' forward if Ah'm livin' in fear!"

Those words struck a cord in the both of us, with the orange daredevil declaring with pride and a fist pump with her right fist;

"That's right! If Sunset Shimmer can put the past behind her, why not us?"

I smiled at them both to show my support of this, but then a thought popped up in my head that I needed to express;

"Yeah, but how are we gonna do that?"

We pondered the question in silence for a good few minutes, but all we could draw from our brains were blanks. Apple Bloom, who recognized the situation, offered calmly;

"Well, with school startin' back up tomorrow, Ah reckon we've got a lot on our minds as it is. So, let's try to think of ideas today and, when we get our school work done tomorrow, we'll reconvene 'ere to discuss what we thought of and narrow thin's down."

This seemed like a good idea to me, so I told our leader;

"I second that motion!"

"Third!", exclaimed Scootaloo with an excited bounce. Looking satisfied, Apple Bloom banged her gavel to signify that the motion was passed. As we left the clubhouse to head to our homes, I couldn't help but think back to the Battle of the Bands, to Sunset choosing to stand up for her friends through song...

I mentally gushed over how wonderful her singing voice was! Such courage and sweetness mixed together in a blend of melodious beauty! Oh, and when Princess Twilight joined in, their vocal harmony was amazing! But then, I felt something in my mind and heart. It was... warm and comforting, but also... invigorating? I couldn't make heads or tales about it, but it seemed harmless, so I had let it be.

I didn't think much of it for a while, certainly not when school started the next day.

The school day was uneventful, especially when compared to the wild competition that, thanks to the beauty of scheduling, had ended just before Spring Break. The classes went through the post-break motions of getting us students back into the swing of things. This included getting one of the worst things a student could get: homework! How much of that annoyance we got varied from class to class. Thankfully, my pile was not too large overall. As luck would have it, Scootaloo and Apple Bloom were on the same boat. We knew as we walked through the halls of our school together that if we put in the time and effort, we could get our homework done before dinner time. We were talking about that topic while we walked, with Apple Bloom saying excitedly;

"No math homework this time around, ya'll! Ah think Miss Cheerliee is showin' us mercy today."

Before we could giggle at the thought of that, however, we were stopped in our tracks by a large pink blur that zoomed over and stopped in front us, revealing itself to be none other than Pinkie Pie, who was smiling brightly as usual. Her antics hardly startled us due to our experience with having her as a friend. With a smile of my own, I greeted her with a wave;

"Hey there, Pinkie! What's going on?"

She responded by puffing out her chest and declaring with a serious face and a surprisingly deep voice that was laced with a hilariously bad Austrian accent;

"Come with me if you want to rock!"

She then spun around and skipped back the way she came before we could laugh over her silly Arnold voice. As tempting as it was for us to break out the movie jokes, we held them back as we followed the party planner down the hall. Like my friends, I was curious as to what she had in mind. Sunset's performance, and that strange feeling from earlier, stuck with me for a good chunk of the trip.

Pinkie led us to where the Music Room was located. I figured the rest of the Rainbooms were inside, given that this was one of the times when they would practice their songs. Only this time, we couldn't hear the muffled sounds of them playing their music from behind the door. Pinkie, with swift movement, opened the door and motioned to us to follow her inside. When we did, we saw the other band members standing together in a row, with Sunset herself standing in the middle while carrying a beautiful electric guitar. Rainbow Dash's own guitar looked about as awesome as her as she stood to Sunset's left, with Rarity rocking her keytar on the right, Fluttershy with her tambourine on Rarity's right, and Applejack holding her bass on the far left. Behind the line of musicians stood Pinkie's drum set. There was something different about the band that caught my eye that day: Sunset was sporting a new look! Her hair was still red with yellow stripes, but the colors were de-saturated a bit. They were vibrant, yes, but not extremely so. She wore a black jacket with fake leather, but this one was more subdued in style. The decorations on the collar were traded in for a large orange chevron on each sleeve. Underneath the jacket was a light blue sundress that had white frills with an orange trim at the bottom. Below the dress was a pair of plain blue pants that were somewhere between loose and tight fitting. For footwear, she wore buckled heeled boots that were grey with a black trim. They were much shorter than the flaming boots of old, since they reached halfway to her knees instead of all the way up to them. Like her jacket, each boot had an orange chevron drawn on the front. I liked Sunset's new style, it made her look more friendly, and she was already really nice! As for Pinkie, she skipped over to the drum set, sat down on its seat, and grabbed the drumsticks that were resting on top of the bass drum to make ready. My friends and I were quite confused over what was going on, with Apple Bloom asking the band;

"Why did ya'll want us to come 'ere?"

The older girls were all smiles as Rainbow Dash, with confidence in every word she spoke, explained;

"We just finished practicing this awesome new song!"

Applejack, as honest as she was humble, added with a grin;

"We could use a fresh pair of ears to test it on before we debut it."

Rarity brought her sense of dignity to the explanation upon chiming in;

"So, we thought it would be lovely if we could play it for you little darlings!"

Our excitement went through the roof upon hearing all of this. Scootaloo was the most excited of us, her rapidly stomping her shoes on the floor being proof of this. She exclaimed with a voice loaded with anticipation;

"This is gonna be so much fun!"

Even though we were giggling at the thought of listening to a new song performed by our favorite band of all time, I had a single question to ask them before the performance could start;

"Why play your new song for us and not anyone else? All of the students would come running if they heard about this."

We waited for the girls to answer. Fluttershy was the one who did so, albeit softly and nervously;

"Well, um, we heard from Sunset about your talk with her and.... um, we figured you were still feeling a little blue."

"Sooooo, we decided to cheer you kids up with a super-amazing, spectacular, smile-creating song that you get to hear before anyone else!", exclaimed a bouncy Pinkie Pie in a rapid pace, her excitement on full display. They were not off the mark, since we still felt pretty bad about us keeping our distance from most of our peers for so long, among other things. Out of appreciation and joy, I nodded my head at the band with a smile. I figured Apple Bloom and Scootaloo did the same. Once we found some free chairs to sit on, we moved them to sit in front of the girls, got comfortable, and waited. After a quick test of their instruments, the Rainbooms got into their playing stances. Pinkie, with the biggest smile in the room, yelled out the beat while raising her drumsticks to the ceiling;

"One-two-three-four!"

The girls immediately began playing, creating the wonderful sounds of Sunset and Rainbow Dash strumming their guitars together mixed with the energetic beep-booping of Rarity's keytar and the soft shaking of Flutterhsy's tambourine, all of which were kept in rhythm by Applejack's bass guitar and Pinkie's bass drum. The resulting music that started off the song was gentle and strong all at once. They played this for about ten seconds before Sunset, much to our joy, started to sing;

The girls had our attention when they started playing, but now that attention was almost impossible to lose! Our ears heard the whole band, but our eyes were fixed on that amber-colored lady. Just hearing the first line was enough to make the three of us realize that this song was not just about anyone: it was about Sunset herself! She sang that first part with clear solemness on her face. She kept this up as she continued singing;

Her smile returned along with a sparkle in her eyes that signified a truly real kind of happiness. The kind that seeped into her singing voice;

That happiness was immediately mixed with powerfully positive pride as she belted out a chorus that Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and I would remember forever and ever:

Those words... Those beautiful, truthful words that poured out from the heart of the girl who sang them... They tugged at our heart strings in such a way that they caused certain memories to play out in our minds. Those memories all came from a dark time in the movie club's history: the time when we made the single worst mistake in our lives. I was shedding tears, but despite what was going through my head, they didn't come from sadness, anger, or regret. They came from this nameless feeling from before, but I was too focused on the song to pay much attention to such a thing. Heck, I barely noticed that I was crying! Sunset and her friends kept up their performance without skipping a beat, her solemn frown from before returning as she sang the next verse;

As if on cue, the sting of our shared mistake, of our regret, flared up from within me. It threatened to pull me away from the song, but I kept my attention on the performance regardless of the pain;

Sunset's sweet voice and revitalized smile, combined with the musical talents of the entire band, kept me grounded and focused on her words;

She then belted out the chorus once more, this time with more passion and the higher end of her vocal range brought to bare for those high notes;

At this point, my pain and regret was swept away by the music, by the vocals, by the six girls who played before us! I was shedding a whole stream of tears, but it didn't matter! I was having fun! We were having fun! I was smiling from ear to ear as the fun ended with a mighty crescendo;

The girls finished playing, allowing the last notes to smoothly fade into silence. At some point during the performance, my two friends and I had stood up from our seats. We didn't even notice we had done this until now! We stood silently while gazing at each of the band members, who looked back us expectantly. Fluttershy was the only one of the six who looked nervous. But, that nervousness melted away as she, along with the others, recognized that all three of us club members were smiling brightly at them. Still, we did not say a word. For five whole seconds, words failed us. After that, Scootaloo, exclaimed with heartfelt joy while sniffing back her own tears;

"That... was... so... awesome!"

Apple Bloom, driven by our friend's words, rushed over to Applejack to give her a big hug. She didn't even wait for her to get the bass guitar out of the way first. That Apple was hardly one to wait for very long. As for me, I made sure to wait until Rarity was ready before pouncing on her with a hug of my own that made her laugh lovingly. Scootaloo, of course, went after Rainbow Dash. We then hugged Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie before turning to face Sunset herself. She had already placed her electric guitar off to the side before getting down on her right knee to gaze at us at our level. We smiled happily at her as the leader of the Canterlot Movie Club declared to the girl who was once our enemy with love and surety;

"You're our Phoenix Friend, sugarcube! There ain't anyone or anythin' that can change that!"

Somehow, some part of me knew that she would say something like that. Frankly, I was all for it! Sunset's smile grew three sizes that day, with love and appreciation sparkling in her eyes. I could feel the sweet support the others were giving us in silence as we almost tackled the amber-colored girl with one of our movie club hugs. While wrapping us up in her arms, she told us sweetly;

"Phoenix Friend... I like it."

At that moment, the feeling I had felt in my mind and heart before came back again. I still didn't know what it was, and its return did not help with that. Still, it was not hurting me or anyone else, so I relaxed into it along with the hug without a second thought.