//------------------------------// // Chapter 46: The Battle of the Bands (The Movie) // Story: The Cassandra Chronicles // by CassandraMyOCisBestpony //------------------------------// Previously on the Cassandra Chronicles "Sunset Shimmer was my third most faithful student behind Twilight and Cassandra" explained Celestia, "but when she didn't get what she wanted, she jumped through the mirror portal." "We need to acquire the crown by any means necessary," said Cassandra. "I agree, we have to get it in the most indirect method possible," said Twilight. "I challenge one of you to a soccer match" said Rainbow Dash. Cassandra stood up, but Rarity stopped her, "careful dear, she hates losing." "In that case, Twilight I trust you to win the soccer match," said Cassandra. "Rainbow texted me sayin' she was gonna bring th' softball team to mah bake sale, and they didn't show! That was th' sole reason ah barely sold any apple treats! One guy was so disgusted by the softball players' absence that he spit out his apple treat right in mah face!" "Hold on a minute" said Cassandra, "now, I come from a world where the telegraph is considered cutting edge technology, so take this for what it's worth, but it occurs to me that these 'text messages' came with some sort of digital identifier that would verify the original sender." "Holy Celestia she's right!" said Rarity, "these are all from Sunset Shimmer." They became friends again. Twilight and her friends were too weak to stop Sunset Shimmer, but Cassandra wasn't. She blasted the demon Sunset and the day was saved. The Mane 7 were at Twilight's new castle, helping her set things up. Everything started going a lot smoother after Applejack fell out a window and died; the number of times they had to drop what they were doing and help somepony with her head stuck in a bucket was sharply decreased. A delivery pony came by with a cart full of books. "Where do you want these books, Princess?" "In the library of course" said Twilight. "Even the one that's glowing and vibrating?" "No. Take that one to my bedroom." "Twilight!" said Cassandra, "that is not an appropriate thing to talk about in polite company!" Twilight hung her head in shame. She was very intelligent but had poor social skills. The others were also ashamed because they were less intelligent and had only marginally better social skills. "It's ok" said Cassandra, "you're cute and that makes up for it." They had a group hug. "Now this diary" said Cassandra knowingly, "is actually a communications device. It means somepony just wrote something in it." They read the diary and indeed, it was a message from Sunset Shimmer, three strange girls were stealing the life force out of innocent students. "My little ponies!" proclaimed Celestia, "you must retrieve the Crown of Magic!" "That was last movie." said Cassandra. "Then you must find the Rainbow Rocks!" "Try again." "You have to... Bring me lunch?" "Seriously?" "Yeah, I'm really hungry." "When aren't you?" "So I guess we just have to wait for 28 moons to pass and then we can save the day!" declared Twilight "Oh no we don't" said Cassandra. She pulled the sheet off of a giant mirror. "We can go to the mirror world with this whenever we need." "I think it would be best if only Cassandra and I went to the Mirror World," said Twilight, "because otherwise we'll get confused by there being two of everypony." "Erm, I think we have bigger problems to worry about than confusion," said Cassandra, "like three Sirens trying to take over the world and kill its inhabitants." "No, being slightly confused is much worse than being shorthanded. We're going to ignore your advice." "And then they sang in the cafeteria while standing on tables except the one who was standing on a table was wearing slacks instead of a skirt. We had to give them a solid minute of upskirt action to gain even a fraction of that much control when we did our song." Rarity had just finished recapping the part that Cassandra wasn't in. Not surprisingly, it was one of the less-interesting parts of this story. "Also since this world is a matriarchy, the amount of touching they were doing to the boys during their song was kind of not ok." "Also, by sheer coincidence, we put together a band a couple of weeks ago, and are all highly proficient in our instruments." added Fluttershy, "and when we play music we grow pony ears and tails." "And you didn't think to try and reach out to me about that until something bad happened?" "Well it seems obvious in hindsight," said Sunset. "Anyway," said Cassandra, "since we're not affected by their singing, and we have the numbers to physically overpower them, I think it's obvious how we're going to get their magic pendants away from them." "Yeah! We gotta sing at them until their pendants shatter," said Applejack. "C'mon Applejack, even you have know that that's not right." said Cassandra "Guys, I think we should listen to Cassandra about this not being the best solution," said Twilight. "We'll let you be lead singer," said Rainbow. For all of Twilight's great qualities 'her lack of social skills made her susceptible to peer pressure. "Ok, I'll do it" said Twilight. The Mane humans explained their roles in the band "I'm the lead singer and lead guitarist. Also the band is named after me" said Rainbow Dash. "I'm on drums," said Pinkie, "because when you think of who you want on the instrument that is the glue that holds everything together, you think the spastic one." "Meep" said Fluttershy shyly. "Oh, tambourine?" said Cassandra, "why that's a lovely instrument. And you play it so well." Fluttershy smiled and blushed "I'm on keytar," said Rarity, "which is exactly the same as being classically trained in piano." "And finally me, ah'm on the most difficult instrument of all - bass." Cassandra gawked. "You serious Applejack? If anything you have the easiest and least important role." "T'aint true!" objected Applejack, "in some songs ah gotta play a B over an' over, an' in other songs, ah gotta play a G over an' over. Besides, what about Fluttershy an' her tambourine? Ah could to that in mah sleep!" "You mind your place!" said Cassandra, smacking her in the back of the head, "Fluttershy has to keep her own tempo independent of the drums, and she can dance, AND, she's the eye candy for the audience." The latter was because she had a body that was quite similar to Cassandra's and almost as hot. "But don't worry Applejack, I'm sure there are some guys outside of your family that like flat-chested girls who smell like a pigsty." Applejack smiled. Cassandra was the best at reassuring people. That night they had a sleepover at Pinkie Pie's house. "This is my sister Maud" said Pinkie, "she's studying for her rocktorate." "Rocks" said Maud "Is she gonna be a rocktologist? Hyuck hyuck hyuck" said Applejack Maud punched her face "Oh! My nose!" said Applejack. "Can we keep her?" said Cassandra, "she's a farmer who speaks her mind more bluntly than anyone I know. Just saying" It was late at night. Celestia's three best students were in the kitchen. "Who needs this much whipped cream?" asked Sunset. "I can think of one reason" quipped Cassandra. Sunset blushed and snickered. "I don't get it," said Twilight. "Never mind" said Sunset. "Cassandra, will you help me write the magic song?" said Twilight "Of course I will. Let me see what you've got so far." Cassandra flipped through the human alicorn's notebook. "Twilight, what's with all the drawings?" "This world has something called Deviantart," explained Twilight, "it's where I can get my art viewed 50,000 times and get famous." Cassandra shook her head, "Twilight, you were supposed to be writing the song. Luckily for you, I'll use my level 99 wordsmithing skills to-" "Boulder was hungry." Maud stood in the doorway, neutral faced but obviously lusting over Cassandra. "In return for my hospitality, I wish to borrow your friend for a while." "Hey, listen here Fifty Shades of Grey, we're kind of busy right now so you'll have to get your rocks off somewhere else." Cassandra didn't like being harsh but it was the truth. "I'm insatiable" said Maud flatly. Cassandra sighed. "Well, you did punch Applejack so I guess I owe you one. Fine, but don't blame me if you finish too fast. I have that effect on people." The two of them left the room, while Twilight and Sunset stood shocked over the fact that she didn't even stumble and say "ponies," because she was cool and collected under pressure. "I've never written a song without Cassandra's help," said Twilight worriedly "Me neither, but we're two smart ponies, what's the worst that could happen?" "We wrote dubstep," said Twilight. Cassandra gave them a stunned stare, "What!? How..... you know what, I don't even want to know." She grabbed Twilight's notebook and tore it in half. "You'll thank me for this later. Here, start over." She handed Twilight a new pen and notebook "Y-you're letting me use your pen? The same pen with which you proved Fermat's Last Theorem?" "It's just a pen Twilight" "But some of your authorial talent must have rubbed off onto the pen and then onto me." "Yeah ok if that's what you need to tell yourself" "We have to be careful" said Sunset, "because all our plans will fail if we show off too much awesomeness." Cassandra took a huge step backwards. "I'll be cheering for you backstage," said Cassandra, "not too awesomely of course." Cassandra took it upon herself to console Lyra and Bonbon and Octavia when they lost, because the Sirens were evil villains who liked shallow and artificial music and had no appreciation for the classics. They all gave Cassandra some practice kissing for her troubles, which they enjoyed because they were all lesbians. Finally it was time for the Rainbooms to face the Dazzlings. But there was trouble, they all got trapped under the stage, except Cassandra who was nimble, and did a wicked cool backflip to get out of the way just as the trapdoor opened. "Vinyl, we need you!" said Cassandra. "ME? WHY ME?" asked the girl, unaware of how loud her voice was, thanks to her headphones. "Because if you don't have a part in this movie, Hasbro won't sell enough DJ PON3 dolls." "WELL I'D LOVE TO HELP, BUT I'M DEAF AND EVERYTHING'S PURPLE." Cassandra rolled her eyes and lifted up the DJ's glasses and headphones. "What the... oh my Celestia, you've cured me!" "I'm not sure I can cure your stupidity, but we'll worry about that later. Go get the Prius ex Machina." "I'm on it." Vinyl got her car and it transformed into an amp. Cassandra hooked up her stratocoaster and began to play. Earlier that day, Cassandra had been playing Guitar Hero, and despite only having had fingers for 2 days, she got 100% on "Through The Fire and the Flames." So, she shredded like a pro and the sirens' pendants were shattered. If the Mane 6 had vanquished them, they would have lost their singing voices completely, but Cassandra's magic was much more powerful. The Dazzlings kept their ability to sing, but now they could only sing Justin Bieber songs. Sonata traded the last of her singing ability for tacos. "Don't you think it's dangerous to let them keep a little bit of their powers?" asked Twilight. "Nah," said Sunset, "their singing only affects tween girls now, and no magic in Equestria can make them more catty and obnoxious." "It's true" agreed Rarity and Applejack. The band showcase went on as scheduled and everyone got participation ribbons because in the grand scheme of things, none of them looked particularly outstanding next to Cassandra. Flash Sentry got last place for being an overpowered Gary Stu. No one ever figured out why they grew pony ears, nor did they particularly care. Earth Twilight sat at her desk. Mounted on the wall was her bulletin board of mysteries, with unlabeled readings from her seismograph, and pictures of question marks which were vitally helpful to have there. She looked over at her dog. "Do you see this squiggly line, Spike? This was my heart rate when I laid eyes on the one called Cassandra."