//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 // Story: Sunset's Redemption // by TheNewYorkBrony //------------------------------// "I told you she wouldn't be up this early! Only you and Granny Smith get up this early!" Dash whispered harshly so as not to disturb Sunset's sleeping neighbors as her and Applejack were trying to find a way to get inside the older girl's apartment. "Well do you got any better ideas?! Because unless you wanna spend the day in jail, breaking an' entering ain't an option!" AJ whispered back. Dash pushed Applejack out of the way and reached under the 'Welcome' mat in front of the door. She smirked when she found what she was looking for, and presented it to the other girl. "Everyone knows that there's always a key under the mat." She said smugly, opening the door. "Oh yeah? Then how come you didn't check under our mat for ours?" Applejack quipped, shutting the door behind her and locking it. "Because, I was too cold to think about that," Rainbow lied, putting the bags of groceries on the counter. "Or think at all," AJ teased. "Hey! If you're gonna keep being like this, I'm just gonna walk to school!" Dash shouted indignantly, folding her arms with a pout. "Be my guest partner," Applejack told her, gesturing towards the frosted over window. "It's nearly below twenty." Dash gulped. "Uh, on second thought, I think I'll just go wake Sunset." She padded into the back and gently knocked on Sunset's door. "Hey, Shimmer, wake up. Your babysitters are here." She said through the door. "Sunset." She said, tapping again. "Yo, Sunset. Up and at 'em!" Dash knocked louder until she noticed that the door wasn't locked. She cracked it open, eyes bulging from what she was seeing as soon as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She tip toed back into the living room/kitchen and tapped AJ on her shoulder. "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh!" She giggled, jumping up and down. Applejack paused from taking the ingredients out of the bags. "Why are you squealing like a little girl who's gotta use the bathroom?" She asked her with an eyebrow arched. "C'mon!" Dash whispered, bringing her into the back where Sunset's room was. "They're cuddling." Sure enough Sunset was embraced by Pinkie while the two slept. It looked very intimate to anyone who didn't know what happened the night before. "Studying, huh?" Dash said loudly, jolting both girls awake. "Last time I checked, friends who just have tutoring sessions don't cuddle up like that." Sunset rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. "Whuh? Rainbow Dash?! Applejack?!" She barked. "What the hell are you guys doing here?!" "Ah'm supposed to be making ya breakfast," AJ responded with a smug grin. Her eyes shifted to Pinkie. "But it looks like you had a late night snack." "It's not like that!" Sunset told her, blushing. "Pinkie heard me screaming last night and she came in here to see what was up." Rainbow and Applejack shared a look. "Okay I know that sounds so wrong but-" "She's telling the truth." Pinkie backed her up with a yawn. "Okay and how does that explain the cuddling?" Dash raised a brow. "Uh...well, it just kinda happened, I guess. We fell asleep talking." Sunset lied. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. The less of the girls who know, the better. "Oh so that's what they're calling it now a days," The athlete teased. Sunset threw a pillow at her. "Jerk!" "C'mon ya'll, times wasting. We still gotta go to school today you know," Applejack reminded them, rolling her eyes. They all went into the living room/kitchen area while Sunset stayed behind to make her bed. She wondered why the nightmares had developed into a painful headache. Not getting enough sleep was one thing, but if she was going to be hurting all day she might as well stay home. But she knew she couldn't. Because if she tried to stay home, that would lead to questions and those questions would lead to answers she had no intention of giving out. She sighed. When did my life become so complicated? After she finished making her bed she yawned, walking out into the living room. She sat down next to Dash on the couch and sighed. "That was the best sleep I've had in weeks." "I bet," Dash said suggestively, which earned her a punch in the arm. Pinkie, who was helping Applejack with breakfast in the kitchen area, coughed into her arm to hide her rising blush. Even though it was true nothing happened between her and Sunset, the idea of them...well, doing anything that intimate together still made her feel a little embarrassed regardless. She was also pretty sure Sunset didn't like her in that way anyway. The smell of cooking bacon filled the apartment as Applejack threw a pack in a frying pan on the stove. Pinkie cracked some eggs and began to scramble them, simultaneously starting a batch of pancakes. Cooking like this was nothing for her; she usually helped out a lot in the kitchen at Sugarcube Corner when it was extremely busy. "Mmmm...that smells so good!" Sunset groaned, throwing her head back to watch Pinkie twirl around Applejack, cleaning up the flour and egg shells on the counter. It wasn't until then that she realized that she was incredibly famished. The piece of Manehattan style pizza she had the night before was nothing but a distant memory by now. She hadn't had a home cooked meal in a long time. While she and Flash dated, he used to come over sometimes and surprise her with breakfast in bed. (Which was the reason for the key under the doormat.) It was a really sweet gesture, and she'd be lying if she said she didn't miss it sometimes. But now that they've officially broken up, it had been months since she ate at home. Sure she'd go with the girls over to Sweet Apple Acres for Christmas, New Years, and every other big holiday. But it was nice to just be surrounded by a small group of people she could trust and just share a meal with them that wasn't in a noisy puplic school cafeteria. "Hey Dash? Why don't you make yerself useful an' set the table? Faster you do it, the faster ya'll can eat," Applejack called to her over the constant stream of water in the sink as she washed the pans her and Pinkie used. Rainbow was about to protest and make a smart comment about how this was Sunset's place and that they were her guests, but swallowed it as she saw Pinkie place a huge stack of her famous funfetti pancakes on the table. She saluted the farm girl. "Aye, aye, Captian!" Ten seconds later the table was set with four plates, knives, forks, and glasses. (After Sunset had told her where they all were, of course.) Applejack set down a container of her family's apple juice and smiled. "Dig in, girls!" "You don't have to tell me twice!" Sunset and Dash said excitedly as they both grabbed a large stack of pancakes off the plate in the center of the table. Pinkie turned the TV on and found some random cartoon to have as background noise to their on going conversations. She sat next to Sunset and began to eat too, being rather quiet. "Twilight wrote me back last night," Sunset said, starting the conversation after a few minutes of silence. "Oh yeah? What'd she say?" Applejack asked, munching on a piece of bacon. Sunset sighed. "Nothing of use yet. Just basically what I told you guys," She said, waving her fork around. "We need to get to school early so we can get a good look at that device our Twilight carries. It looked like an old video game controller or something." "So what, she MacGyver'd herself a magic detecting device out of spare parts?" Dash asked. "Whoa. We've got us a hardcore nerd on our hands." "A hardcore nerd that will probably stop at nothing to find out the truth. And if we don't stop her, she could get herself, and possibly the rest of us in some serious trouble." Sunset put another pancake on her plate. "The more we know about her, the more advice we can get from Twilight on how to get rid of well, Twilight." "And how do you suppose we do that? She's some type of super genius or something. There's no way we can out smart her and trick her into telling us about herself." Dash rebutted, folding her arms. "We don't need her whole life's story," Sunset told her, rolling her eyes. "We just need to know what she's up to. We know that she's snooping around for the cause of all the magical output, but we don't know why. She could want to find out for an infinite number of reasons." Applejack nodded. "Besides, she doesn't know we're the cause of it. We can use that to our advantage. Though it wouldn't hurt to get a hold of that magic detector. It's like Sunset said, there's a magical residue that's blanketing the school and we need to know if the Battle of The Bands attracted any more beings from Equestria." "And figure out if this so called cold going around is related to any of this." Sunset added. "If we can get a hold of one of her devices, we can kill two birds with one stone." "Well let me know when you can come up with a plan that won't blow our cover," Dash said, folding her arms. "Because unless you've got a plan better than sneaking up on her, this whole thing is pointless." Sunset smiled wryly. "Funny, I don't see you trying to contribute to the conversation." "I'll contribute alright!" Dash grumbled. "I'll contribute my foot up your pretty little-" "Hey....uh...guys?" Pinkie piped up. She hadn't spoken the entirety of breakfast. But now she was glancing between the other three girls and her phone. "I think you guys need to see this," That got Sunset and Dash to stop their quarreling. She held up the device in their faces. It was a post on MyStable, made by Pixel Pizzaz, one of Photo Finish's band members and friends. It didn't go into much detail, but they could all infer what happened. "Okay so now that's four people with the same exact cold. That's not exactly suspicious considering it's below twenty outside," Dash said. "But don't you think this weather is a little abnormal for spring? Dashie, it's the middle of April why would it be below twenty degrees?" Pinkie asked her. "April showers bring May flowers?" Dash shrugged. "I think something or more like someone, is influencing the weather." Sunset theorized. "What do you mean? How can someone do that?" Applejack asked her. "Duh! Magic!" Pinkie reminded her. "Yea but, why? Why make the weather noticeably abnormal?" Applejack responded. Sunset hummed in thought before snapping her fingers. "To make the cold seem like it's because of the weather! Think about it! Isn't it a little convenient that it rained yesterday and today another student is sick?" "Yea, but that sort of thing happens all the time when it rains," Applejack said. "How does this make it any different?" "That's the thing," Sunset said, practically jumping in her seat. "It's not winter. It's the middle of spring. The temperature outside shouldn't be lower than sixty. Even if we take into account global warming, it being twenty below in April still sounds strange." "So what do you suggest we do now that we got a lead? Go snooping through the school, looking for students who look like they've seen that kiddie ice queen movie too many times?" Dash asked pointedly. "No," Sunset answered, rolling her eyes. "We wait. And we watch. So far only four students have been infected with whatever's going around. And while we wait to see what happens next, we should interview the victims to see if they know anything. Maybe they could tell us if they saw anyone strange before becoming ill or give us an idea of what symptoms to look out for." Applejack nodded. "Sounds like a plan to me." She looked at her watch and whistled. "We better get a move on, girls. School starts in forty five minutes." "Okay, just, let me write to Twilight really quickly about what we found out," Sunset strode into her room and snatched the book up off of her bedside table, pulled out a pen out of her bookbag and began to write. Dear Princess Twilight, Forget other you. At least, for now. We have bigger fish to fry. I forgot to tell you but Principal Celestia had a sneaking suspicion that something was going down at CHS again. Turns out she was right. As I write this, it's below average temperature outside for April. Last night we had a really bad storm, but woke up to January like weather. The girls and I theorize that someone from Equestria might be behind this. My knowledge of the creatures of the weather controlling nature is a little rusty, so I'd appreciate it if you sent me any information you have in your new library about that. I'm sure Princess Celestia gave you tons of books on everything. Nothing exactly extreme has happened yet, but four students have been diagnosed with a mysterious illness that no one seems to know the name of. This is what Principal Celestia asked us to look into, and I have a feeling that whoever is trying to control the weather is trying to cover up their tracks. As soon as we find anything major out, I'll be sure to let you know. Yours in friendship, Sunset Shimmer. Oh and P.S., After this is over, I kinda need to have a talk with you about Pinkie Pie. Sunset closed the book and sighed, shoving it in her bag. As she went into the bathroom to start getting ready, she couldn't shake the feeling that this was the beginning of something big.