//------------------------------// // Naked in an Elevator // Story: In the Absence of Sunset Shimmer // by MyHobby //------------------------------// “Step right this way, ladies and gentle… dragons… Step right up and see the first wonder of the scientific community! Princess Twilight Sparkle’s Superior Magic Scanner!” Little Spike bowed with a flourished hand, keeping his eyes on his audience of one dog-turned-dragon and one human-turned-pony. Twilight Sparkle walked under the high archway and into the laboratory. It wasn’t large enough for Big Spike to fit inside, but he could poke his head in. Twilight smiled as she looked around the room, listening to the various beeps and boops of technology at work. “Now this… this I can understand just fine.” Much like her basement back home, the walls were lined with gizmos and doohickeys all clicking away, recording one thing or another. Unlike her basement, however, the room was huge enough to house two semi-trucks with room to spare. The machines, too, were supersized; towering monstrosities that would have put the largest Space Age computer to shame. The largest sat in the center of the room, its lights dark and its graphs silent. A chair was place in front of it, over which hovered a wired helmet. Twilight trotted up to it as Little Spike spoke: “Designed by Professor Merlot of Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, it was originally created to study the amperage of magic flowing from a unicorn’s horn. Twilight Sparkle later refined the design to record the flow of magic through fairy strings, repurposing the scanner to be used by any type of pony.” “Any type?” Twilight Sparkle circled around the chair, tapping tubes with her hoof. “You mean like those winged soldier kinds?” “You are really new around here, aren’t you?” Little Spike held up three fingers. “Three kinds of ponies. Unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies. Horns that control magic, wings that control the weather, and legs that control nature.” He scratched his chin. “Well, those and bat ponies, crystal ponies, breezies, Arabians, Clydesdales, changelings are kinda ponies…” He crossed his arms and let out a snort. “Huh. Why do we say there’s only three kinds of ponies?” Twilight Sparkle sat in the seat and lowered the helmet on its crane. Its construction made sense, to a point. Wires lead from diodes on the inside of the hat and led to the main machine, where the signals would be transformed into data. Not electrical signals, though. It was all magic. Magic powered, magic sensing, magic reading… Back home, her own magic sensor had been based around electricity, though it was designed to sense a form of energy she hadn’t truly understood. Still didn’t. That’s where Princess Twilight and Sunset would come in handy. Spike patted the computer. “The first one was destroyed in the Tirek attacks of the year one-thousand and one. But it’s been rebuilt to be bigger and better than ever. It can sense fluctuations up to one-thousands of a tinker.” “Tirek?” Twilight pursed her lips. “You mean Tirek Odolwa the terrorist?” “No. Tirek the Demon King.” Little Spike glanced back at the entrance, his brow wrinkled. “You know? Centaur, eats magic, lacks a moral compass?” “What does magic taste like?” Big Spike asked. “Uh.” Little Spike shrugged. “I dunno. Sparkly, maybe?” Twilight Sparkle squinted at the helmet. Copper coils surrounded two protrusions made of a material she couldn’t identify. “So what about the ponies with both horns and wings, like the princess? A Fluttercorn? An Ubersus? An Excessive-corn-asus?” “Alicorns,” Little Spike said. “After the material unicorn horns are made of.” “Not keratin?” Twilight Sparkle’s horn glowed. She snapped the wires off of the helmet and hovered the diodes before her eyes. “Interesting.” “Buh-wha—?” Little Spike’s jaw dropped. “You broke it!” “I’m fixing it.” Twilight snatched a long metal rod from a work table across the room. “Improving it.” “You tear apart the helmet and you call it fixing it?” Little Spike tapped a claw against his palm as smoke trailed out of his nose. “You just destroyed the thing that makes the entire… thing work right! If you wanted to see the parts, I got the stinking blueprints right here!” Twilight smirked, peering over her glasses. “Then if the princess wants it back the way it was, she can go right ahead and follow those blueprints, can’t she?” Little Spike furrowed his brow. He let his shoulders slump and looked away. “She has a name, you know.” “Yeah, and it’s Twilight Sparkle. Same as me.” Twilight went to work twisting the copper wires up the length of the bar. Catching the smaller dragon’s dim expression, she let out a low grumble. “Yeah, yeah. Call it my way of differentiating us. Just to keep myself from going nutty with confusion.” His mouth went from a frown to a straight line. “That’s fair. Kinda. I guess it’s better than picking out dumb nicknames for the both of you.” He snickered. “I can see it now: Feathers and Glasses. One’s sarcastic. So’s the other. They fight crime.” Twilight tapped the side of her glasses. She licked her lips as she ran her eyes along the side of the scanner. “‘Feathers?’ I don’t get it.” Little Spike tapped a metal panel, which popped open to reveal the inner workings of the device. He stepped back to give her full view. “The wings? She’s got ’em, you don’t.” Big Spike smiled. “I don’t have wings either.” “Yeah” Twilight said, “you and the little guy both—” She jumped in her seat. Her mind went blank for a good, long moment. She looked at her back with squinted eyes, running over the fabric of her long coat. She slid it down her shoulders to expose the thinner material of her shirt. She got a glimpse at the skinny contours of her body; not a single wing-like bulge could be found. She shrugged her coat back on and adjusted her glasses with a push. “That’s weird. What happened to the princess? How come she has wings? Some sort of genetic experiment? A mutation, maybe?” “What? No, that’d be stupid.” Little Spike placed his hands on his hips, a far-away smile touching his face. “She learned the magic of friendship and crafted a new kind of spell. I don’t really get the specifics, but the magic that joins her and her friends together somehow combined and gave her… kinda an upgrade. A reward for doing a good job, or maybe a boost to get her through rough times ahead.” “Yeah.” Twilight Sparkle shut one eye to look down the length of the rod. “The ‘magic of friendship’ thing is far less stupid.” “Don’t knock it ’til you try it.” Little Spike skittered towards the scanner, feeling at the buttons with his clawtips. “You just gotta win folks over with that charming sincerity of yours.” “Whadda yah mean ‘till you try it?’ I have lots of friends!” Twilight Sparkle rested her forehead in her hoof. “Now I’m engaged in a battle of wits with my dog from an alternate universe. Will the wonders never cease?” Little Spike pinched a switch between his fingers. “Not so long as you keep forgetting that I’m nopony’s dog.” He flipped the machine on. It came to life with a mechanical ka-chunk and a deep thoomp. The rod sparked in her telekinetic grasp, causing Twilight to yelp and drop it to the ground. She pulled her four legs into the chair and stared at the metal bar like it was a hissing snake. The computer let out a whirr as it spat out paper. Little Spike ripped off a sheet and compared it to one held in his other claw. “You’ll be happy to hear that your fairy strings are operating on a level far above most unicorns. Still not quite where Twilight was… before she got her wings.” “You mean ‘before she learned the magic of friendship’?” Twilight gave him a humorless grin. “You trying to tell me I don’t have many friends.” “Nah, there’s a bajillion reasons you don’t have as strong of magic.” Spike counted off on his fingers. “You haven’t learned much about it, you haven’t practiced much, your body isn’t strong enough to move that much energy…” “Practice and exercise, my two favorite words.” Twilight glared at the mess of wires inside the machine. “What’s taking them so long? I can’t rewire the scanner if I don’t know what the wires do. This is just a little bigger than the one back home. Just a little.” Little Spike glanced at the doorway. “Twilight… Princess Twilight’s had a lot on her shoulders lately. I think she might just need a friend for a little bit.” He grinned. “You know, to talk things over.” Twilight removed a wire with a glimmer of magic. An arc of electricity jumped across the gap with a pop. She took a step back and stuck it back in its socket. “She could do it on her own time.” “Hay. If she needs it, she needs it.” Little Spike reached over her shoulder, twisted a dial down to zero, and removed the same wire. No zaps were forthcoming. “If you run into high-stress situations with something on your chest, it’s gonna weigh you down. You’re gonna get distracted. It’s best to get it off your chest.” Twilight leaned her chair back, balancing it on its back legs. Her hoof touched the ground just enough to keep her from toppling over. She looked at Big Spike’s green eyes, then at her own intertwined forehooves. “Sometimes talking about it just makes it raw.” Big Spike twiddled his thumbs. Twilight leveled the chair with an exasperated grunt and a wooden thud. She levitated the rod off the floor and continued to wind the wires. “Besides, there’s nothing to discuss. I’ll figure it out. I’ll fix it.” Little Spike lowered one eyebrow. He looked from Twilight to Big Spike, worrying his lower lip. “Sorry. Did I touch a nerve?” Big Spike’s ears drooped. He tapped his claws against the crystalline floor. “It’s just… You’re not the first Spike she’s argued with today.” “Oh.” Little Spike almost mirrored his counterpart’s pose, instead tapping his claws against each other. “I am sorry. But you guys can work it out. I mean, Twilight and I don’t always agree, but we’re still…” Twilight stared at him over the tip of her glasses. Her lips pressed together, holding back a sarcastic quip. In the end, she wasn’t quite able to keep it in check. “I’m beginning to think that we’re a little more different than you realize.” Little Spike set his feet shoulder-width apart. “You’re still Twilight Sparkle. I think that counts for something.” He trundled on his hind legs towards the hallway. “You guys wait here and try not to break anything. I’ll go whip up some cookies. There’ll be enough for all of us—” He glanced up at Big Spike’s house-sized belly. “—to have a taste. Later.” Twilight Sparkle smirked when she saw Sunset Shimmer pass him on her way to the laboratory, the princess trailing slightly behind. Twilight waved her over. “Come on, let’s get the show on the road. One slightly-unhinged murderer is running amuck, just waiting for us to run her down.” “Would that it was just one,” Sunset groaned. “We might be facing an entire cabal of siren wannabes.” “What the—” Twilight shook her head. “It’s not just gonna be us against the world, is it?” No. I have several guard outposts ready to assist. Princess Twilight flapped her wings and carried her to the top of her scanner. What work have you done? “I fashioned a makeshift antenna.” Twilight held the rod in her hooves. “It won’t get much range, but it’s a start.” The princess landed beside her and examined the device. She munched the tip of her mane. Her eyes lit up at the same moment she clapped her hooves. Aha! Just like a radio antenna! I can weld a good one together in a jiffy. “Did she say ‘radio’?” Twilight Sparkle’s jaw dropped. “Did she just say ‘weld’?” Princess Twilight trotted through the laboratory, gathering up bits and pieces of metal in a growing cloud of magic. They arranged themselves in a cross-pattern around the largest bar. Flashes of lightning lit up the ends where the metal met, fusing them together into a single piece. Wires wound themselves in and out of the tubes, then snaked to connect to the scanner itself. Princess Twilight Sparkle settled the newly-crafted antenna before them with a smile. Careful. It’s still hot. Twilight Sparkle stood up and bit her lip. “Okay. Magic is way cool again. Can you teach me that?” Sunset bumped her shoulder. “I think we’ll have to wait for the advanced classes.” “Spoilsport.” Twilight trotted around the branching metal pole. “Let’s get it fired up. Maybe we can start the scan before Li’l Spike gets back with the snacks.” “You’re really new around here, aren’t you?” The dragon in question waddled back into the room, a plate balanced in one hand. “Then I guess this is your first time tasting chocolate chip cookies cooked to perfection with dragon fire?” “Ha!” Sunset Shimmer reached across the room with a spell and snagged two cookies. “Stop snarking and start snacking.” Big Spike sniffed the air. A tiny bit of drool was slurped up before it could hit the floor. “From what I can smell, those things kick dog treats right in the butt.” “You don’t know the half of it, bro.” Little Spike tossed one into the air, which was quickly snatched by Big Spike’s jaws. “Enjoy your first taste of real food.” Big Spike chewed for a brief moment, but needn’t have bothered. The chocolate chip cookie practically melted in his mouth. Tears pooled in his eyes. “Spike, you might be my new best friend. It tastes like… heaven.” Twilight Sparkle snickered. “Hey, what does that make me? Chopped liver?” “No! You’re way better than chopped liver.” The huge dragon shifted his body, fitting his shoulders into the archway. “He can be my pony-world best friend, but you’ll always be my SSSBFF.” Her faint laughs died off. She swallowed hard before continuing. “What’s that mean?” “Super-Special Spectacular Best Friend Forever.” He waved a hand. “Or something like that. I haven’t really figured it out. Been thinking about it, though.” Twilight conjured up a tired smile. “You were always my Super-Special Dog Best Friend Forever, but that’s probably not quite right anymore.” They stood facing each other, shuffling their feet and generally not looking at each other. Twilight at last gained the strength to speak. “I don’t want you to die, Spike.” “I know.” He lay his chin on the ground. “Generally speaking, I don’t wanna, either.” Twilight lifted a hoof and rubbed his nose. She turned away with an extended exhale and gave him one final pat before walking back towards the princess. “So what have we got? What sort of magical scent are we sending this technological bloodhound after?” Sunset winked. “I was counting down the minutes until you made a dog analogy.” “Stuff it, Shimmer.” Princess Twilight dug through her saddlebags. She let out a snort of exasperation and dropped them to the floor to give herself a better angle. She gave a satisfied nod and lit her horn. A red gemstone shard rose out of the bags. It twirled in the air, glinting in the bright lights of the laboratory. Princess Twilight sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly to relax her trembling knees. It almost worked, Twilight noticed. “Recognize it?” Sunset asked. “The sirens were the ones who finally showed you magic was real. Our battle with them, anyway. This crystal is a shard of the pendants that gave them their powers.” “The ones you broke?” Twilight bit her lower lip as hard as she dared. A cold chill ran down her spine in the presence of the gemstone. Nerves, she assumed. Just a little memory of how she felt when she first took the readings. A little taste of the adrenaline. She took a deep breath of her own, but her knees were just as disobedient as the princess’. “It’s… something else, alright. I could almost swear it’s…” “Chilling you to the bone?” Little Spike supplied. “Sending a creepy-crawly down your spine? Making you fear for your soul? Yeah, I’m getting that feeling, too.” Big Spike nodded. “It feels like a stupid cat that’s just out of reach. Just taunting me with its stupid cat meows.” He rolled his eyes. “Stupid Opalescence.” “Hey, it’s just a broken gemstone.” Sunset Shimmer took it in her glowing blue grip. She rolled it end over end in front of their faces. “It’s lost its power. It can’t do any harm or good in its current state.” She flashed an uneven smile at Princess Twilight. “Right?” “Hand it here,” Twilight said, holding out her hoof. Sunset froze in place. “Why?” “So that I can finally create my doomsday device to take over both worlds.” Twilight bopped Sunset over the head. “So that I can see it, goofball.” The glow around the object shifted from blue to lavender. Twilight Sparkle drew the shard close to her face, examining it from every angle. With a small push, she could feel pathways running through the crystal. Like wires on a circuit board, or the subway system beneath the city. She cut off her magic and let the fragment drop into the middle of her hoof. “Aria.” “What’s that?” Sunset asked. “I’ve seen this before. Or something very much like it.” Twilight Sparkle pushed her glasses up her snout. “When they found… At the crime scene this morning, there was debris around the body. A few pieces of glass, a couple ceramic shards… and a sliver of red gemstone.” Sunset Shimmer sat down, a frown covering her face. “Even after all these years, they still hold on to them. Were they hoping to repair them? Maybe just keep souvenirs? Did they still hold a little power?” Princess Twilight Sparkle scribbled down a quick note. Did Sonata still have hers? “If she did, I didn’t notice.” Sunset shrugged. “Did you see anything, Twilight?” “Nadda.” Twilight sat down and crossed her forelegs. She wobbled until she found her center of balance. “Which could mean anything or nothing. My question is: Do you think the pendants could be repaired?” Princess Twilight wrinkled her nose. It would be like putting together a ten-thousand-piece puzzle with several pieces missing. “So within the realm of possibility.” Pretty much, yeah. Twilight ran a hoof down her face. “Goody. Let’s track the sucker down and put an end to it. We can worry about their endgame after we’ve thwarted phase one.” “Speaking of that,” Sunset said, “how do we plan to track them via the shard? There’s no energy emanating from the fragments, is there?” You’re thinking of a passive scanner, Sunset. Princess Twilight Sparkle scribbled up a storm as Little Spike read over her shoulder. That’s how a normal radio works. It just picks the signals out of the air. What I’m hoping for is an active scanner. It sends out a signal and records what bounces back. Like a sonar. “Aha!” Twilight Sparkle clapped a hoof against the floor. “So you’ll send out a magical spell that resonates with the shard and see if you can find anything that reacts in the same way. We follow the bouncing signal and voila!” “That’s cool,” Big Spike said. “Whatever that means.” Little Spike patted his side. “When Twi gets like this, I’ve learned to just smile, nod, and get outside the blast radius.” You’ve got the idea. Princess Twilight gritted her teeth. There’s just one problem. Sunset Shimmer cringed from her ears to her tail tip. “To make a spell that resonates with the shard, you’ve got to mimic the siren’s song.” “That doesn’t sound too terrible,” Little Spike muttered. “Except for the ‘siren’ part. And the ‘song’ part. And the whole ‘using evil magic’ thing.” Princess Twilight flashed him a grin, which faded almost instantly. She twitched her horn towards the scanner and hovered the shard at neck level, licking her dry lips. Little Spike skittered up to the control panel and cranked a few dials to higher numbers. He held his finger above a red switch. He hesitated, his breath caught in his throat. “Are you sure about this, Twi? You can’t talk, much less sing.” Neither could the Dazzlings, Princess Twilight wrote. Trust me, Spike. He sighed. “You know I do, Twilight.” The machine thrummed to life at the flick of his finger. Lights blinked and diodes buzzed as they sucked in information from the world around them. Twilight and Sunset took several steps back from the princess, their hearts in their throats. It wouldn’t be too bad, Twilight thought to herself. Even if the princess did make the spell, she wouldn’t use it. She didn’t seem the type to use mind-altering magic to make people do things. Nah. She was nice like that. It wasn’t like anything could go wrong and totally mess up anybody’s psyche. The magic sparks around the princess’ horn brightened to a new intensity, flaring at a renewed vigor. The color, a pretty lavender to compliment her purple coat, shifted to a sickly green. The shard shivered in her little bubble of influence. Twilight looked closely, but she couldn’t tell if it was glinting in the light or glowing all on its own. Princess Twilight held her breath, and then breathed lightly on the siren’s pendant. “Ahh-ah-ah, ahh-ah. Ahh-ah-ah, ahh-ah.” The chord ended in a shriek as Princess Twilight’s eyes flashed green. She dropped the shard, which clattered to the crystal floor. It danced end over end to settle at Sunset’s hooves. The princess stumbled back and fell to her rump. She clutched her chest, which did nothing to slow her shallow breath or thundering heart. Twilight yelped as she noticed green fog gathering around her hooves. She jumped away and watched it drift to the red gemstone of its own accord. A hissing sound like distant, muted screams wailed out of the stone as the fog was absorbed into the magical trinket. After a moment, the room lay still, save for the whirrs and clicks of the magic scanner. The princess flapped a wing to cool her heated, blushing face. She let out weak coughs as she struggled to catch her breath. “It worked.” Little Spike ran up to her and held her foreleg. He eased her gently to her hooves. “Twilight… you did it.” Wetness glistened in his eyes. “You sang again.” Princess Twilight hiccupped. Her wide eyes jumped from the young dragon, to Twilight, to Sunset, and back again. They settled on the small shard of gemstone, lying at her friend’s feet. Her lips trembled, tears wetting her cheeks. She lifted her pen and scratched out a haphazard message. I think I’ll just That might be I need to I’ll be back. She stampeded out of the laboratory, her flapping wings giving her an extra burst of speed. “Shoot.” Little Spike let out a mighty, smoke-laden sigh. He twisted a knob on the machine and flicked the switch to the “off” position. “She needs somepony to talk to, Sunset. I’d go to her myself, but… I think she needs you for this one.” Sunset Shimmer fidgeted. She flicked her tail and glanced at the scanner. “Well…” Little Spike studied the displays. He waved her off with a flick of his wrist. “The elevator’s two lefts and a right down the hall. Bedroom’s on the sixth floor. I can get the scanner working while you guys are gone; plenty of data to work off of.” He lifted his hand towards the full-grown dragon at the entrance. “Whadda yah say, big guy? You can help me set the antenna up outside. We deserve a little guy time, right?” “Sounds okay.” Big Spike’s tail waved in the air behind him, narrowly missing the stained-crystal windows lining the hall. “What’s guy time? I’ve heard Big Mac talking about it, but I’ve never had it before.” “It’s a magical place, my friend.” Little Spike’s tail swayed, shooing Twilight and Sunset from the laboratory. “A magical place indeed.” Sunset set off, first slowly, then with increasingly solid steps. Twilight trailed along behind her. “I… don’t know that I should come,” Twilight said. Sunset raised an eyebrow and slowed her pace, coming side-by-side with her friend. “Why not? I think it’ll be fine.” “It’s just…” Twilight hemmed and hawed. She leveled her eyebrows and let out a grunt. “I’ve never done something like this before.” Sunset’s left ear dipped down. “Something like what?” “I dunno. Comforting, commiserating, sympathizing, any of it! I never had the opportunity.” She gestured with a foreleg as they walked. “I grew up basically an only child, ever since Shiny joined the military. I never really had friends until I started to tutor Big Mac, and he’s not exactly emotionally unstable, you know? If I hadn’t heard the stories, I could have sworn he’d never cried a day in his life!” She let out a loud bark of laughter. “I’m the least sympathetic person I know, and I went to the same school as Suri Polomare!” Sunset Shimmer giggled quietly. She parted her lips slightly to give Twilight a tiny grin. “I remember that you sympathized just fine when I was talking about my past.” Twilight blinked. She frowned, shaking her head. “That’s… different. You’re my friend. I know you. I care a lot about you. It just… came easy.” “It doesn’t have to be all that different.” Sunset rested her foreleg across Twilight’s shoulders. “Sometimes, all you have to do is be there for somebody. We can lend a sympathetic ear and a shoulder to cry on.” She cast her eyes to the ground. “Or, in Princess Twilight’s case, a sympathetic eye.” They walked to an elevator, which had a purple feather settled near the doors. Sunset pressed the button marked “Up.” “Empathy isn’t just something you’re born with. You have to exercise it like a muscle. You have to learn to love somebody. If you work at it, you get better at it.” “Gee, there’s that ‘exercise’ word again.” Twilight climbed into the elevator, which was hewed from crystal like the rest of the castle. It glowed from within, powered by the fire of friendship or some such nonsense. “And you complain about me using offensive language.” Sunset brought her forelegs up to her mane and puckered her lips. “You, too, could have a physique as stunning as mine, if only you did a few dozen sit-ups every morning.” Twilight’s eyes jumped to Sunset’s flanks of their own accord. Her teeth snapped together in an equally-involuntary shudder. “I’ll thank you for never, ever again reminding me that you are butt-naked.” “Ha.” Sunset let out a small breath as the elevator came to a stop. “But seriously, magic requires you to be fit in your mind, body, and soul. You’re gonna have to get some exercise if you wanna reach your potential.” “You’re really gonna turn magic into work?” Twilight tripped over the elevator’s threshold. Her forelegs crossed to catch her, saving her from plummeting right into her nose. She smirked. “Looks like I found my sea legs. Kinda.” Sunset Shimmer patted her shoulder. She set her eyes straight ahead, where an ornate set of double-doors hung half-open. Translucent windows of purple crystal stars sat centered in the wood, surrounded by a small cloud of silvery pinpricks. “If that room isn’t Twilight’s then it’s missing a good opportunity to be.” “It looks fit for a princess, but so does everything in this place.” Twilight paced to the side of the hall to get a straight-on view of the design. “What sets this particular ‘too expensive’ door apart?” Sunset shrugged. She pattered to it with a set jaw. “It’s got her cutie mark on it, of course.” “Oh, yeah, sure.” Twilight Sparkle nodded with an earnest expression on her face. “How silly of me. Of course it has her cutie mark. Why didn’t I see it before? It’s so clear now.” Sunset raised one eyebrow as high as it would go. Twilight Sparkle gritted her teeth. “Do I even wanna know what a cutie mark is?” Sunset laughed quietly. “We’ll make a pony out of you yet, Twi.” *** Rainbow Dash lay across the couch with her hair splayed across the cushion. She wiggled her fingers in the air, playing a song on a pitch-perfect air guitar. One leg kicked into the air with the strum of a particularly awesome chord. “When dat lighting strikes Got you dead to rights You know the Weather Team is on the scene!” The wide-screen television mounted on the wall was the subject of many an argument over which one of the roommates actually owned it. Most of these discussions erupted when one of them wanted to watch something the other couldn’t stand. Rainbow Dash thought the Fashion Network was either completely boring or offensive on a personal level, while Rarity considered Adrenaline Network equally so. “And just who would dare To face the rainbow hair? They’ll be beaten, bruised, and creamed!” Rainbow Dash continued to sing as she waited for the commercial break to reach its end. She lowered her voice slightly when she heard a chair scrape across the kitchen floor. A heavy sigh accompanied the whirr of a laptop booting up. “’Cause you know it’s Weather Girl! Oh yeah Weather Girl! She’s got the moves “And she’s coming for you Whether you’re ready or not She’s the super-cool Unbelievably hot “Weather Girl! No way Weather Girl! You’re gonna get schooled “When that lightning strikes You’ll know it’s Weather Girl” Slow, steady applause reached Rainbow’s ears. She sat up in a brief approximation of a bow. “Thank you, thank you. You’re a lovely audience—” Her stomach twisted when she caught sight of the woman sitting just a few feet away. Rarity’s face was covered in that weird green mud she swore “rejuvenated her skin.” Despite that covering, the sour expression on her face couldn’t be hidden. She ceased clapping and turned her grimy face back to her glowing screen. “So…” Rainbow Dash wrapped her fingers over the back of the couch. “You’re still friends with the swamp monster, huh?” Rarity didn’t look up from her work. “Make another joke about my treatment and I swear on my favorite curling iron I will shave your head while you sleep.” “Noted.” Rainbow Dash twisted around to plant her bottom on the cushion. She fingered the hem of her favorite pajama shorts. “What’s got you up at one in the morning?” Rarity let out a forced breath. “Trenderhoof’s latest article has so many typos and downright blatant errors that it’s taking me overtime just to get it in order. How the heck he still has a job is so far beyond me I can’t see it with a telescope.” “Gee,” Rainbow Dash said, “it’s almost like he has somebody to cover his butt every time he makes a mistake. Who could that be?” She could feel Rarity’s eyes burning a hole in her skull. “Trend’s articles reflect the entire magazine, Rainbow darling. If I don’t make Carousel as fabulous as possible, it would be the death of me.” Rainbow Dash smiled as the program finally returned to the screen. “You could, I dunno, fire him.” “The man sells magazines, unfortunately enough.” Rarity propped her cheek in her palm. “So here I am at one a.m. on a Friday night. Sitting in my bathrobe and editing an article about the Sandidry Desert Oasis Café. Listening to my roommate make up her own theme song.” Lightning flashed outside their window. Thunder struck immediately after. Electronic noise clouded Rainbow’s screen. “Dagnabbit. It’s only supposed to storm when I’m on duty! How come Cloudkicker always gets the good weather?” Rarity covered her eyes, getting mud all over her hands. “I’m so pathetic.” Rainbow Dash bit her lower lip to suppress a smile. She spoke in as soft a voice as she was capable of. “Aw, come on, Rares. It’s the weekend! So what if you’ve gotta work? So what if you’ve got a crappy coworker? Seize the day and make your stand! You know you’re—” “I’m awesome Take caution Look at me I’m awesome as I wanna be!” Rarity let out a ladylike snort. “That would be your phone, I presume? Who would be calling you at this hour?” Rainbow jumped off the couch and scurried to her bedroom. A leap brought her belly-flopping onto her bed. She grasped the phone off her nightstand and read the caller ID. “It’s… Pinkie?” “When it comes to making music, I’m the ruler You wish you could be twenty-percent c—” “Hey, it’s Dash.” “Dashie! Oh my gosh, I’m so glad you’re still up!” Rainbow Dash rolled onto her back. “Yeah. Having no curfew is nice like that. What’s up, Pinkie?” “I’m so sorry.” Pinkie’s voice sounded strained even through the heavy tinny tinge added by the phone. “I just wanna say sorry in advance.” “Uh oh.” Rainbow shook her head gently, a smile on her lips. “What’re you apologizing for this time, huh? Not enough sprinkles on the—” “I’m serious, Dashie. This is really serious.” Pinkie’s voice fell to a hush. “I need your help.” Rainbow’s face fell. She stood up and tucked the phone against her shoulder. She pulled jeans from her dresser and started to slip them on. “What’s wrong?” “Sonata Dusk—you know, the Dazzling from highschool?—just showed up on my doorstep and asked for a place to spend the night.” Rainbow cinched her belt tight. “That’s random. She just showed up out of the blue?” “Yes, and…” Pinkie took a deep breath, which hissed loud over the speaker. “Oh, Dashie, I can’t give her a place to stay. Not now. I’ve got all the kids, and she’s an ex-villain, and it’s just not safe for her to be near them and Cheese was supposed to be home hours ago and I’m so afraid he’s gotten hurt and I don’t even know where he is and Sonata’s in the next room and I don’t know what to do!” “Easy! Pinkie Pie! It’s okay!” Rainbow slid her jacket over her pajama top. “I’m coming over right now. Maybe she’ll agree to spend the night with Rarity and me. I’m sure we can make the couch comfy for her.” She ran one hand through her hair. “I’ll be over in, like, ten minutes—” Rainbow’s window rattled on its hinges at the crash of another mighty bolt from the sky. She swallowed hard. “M-maybe twenty minutes. I’ll be there soon. Y-you can count on me.” “Oh, thank you!” Pinkie nearly screeched. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! I just didn’t know what I was gonna do!” “Relax, Pinkie.” Rainbow Dash nudged her door open. “You got me as a friend, remember?” Rarity turned from her laptop as Rainbow hung up. “Pinkie? What did she want?” “One of the Dazzlings showed up and asked for a place to stay.” Rainbow flicked her hair over her shoulder as she knelt to tie her shoes. “She doesn’t wanna put the kids at risk, you know? I thought maybe we could let Sonata stay the night here.” Rarity intertwined her fingers. “When were you going to consult me on this?” “Just as soon as it came up.” Rainbow Dash stood tall and crossed her arms over her chest. “Pinkie needs us, Rares. She needs us to do this thing for her.” Rarity threw her hands into the air. “Well, it’s not as if I was going to say ‘no’ to Pinkie. I’m not in the habit of kicking sweet puppies.” Rainbow paused with her hand on the door handle. “Hey, you mind if I take your dad’s old golf club?” “You mean my self-defense sledgehammer?” Rarity gestured vaguely off to the side. “It’s resting against the kitchen wall. If you think you might need to brain Sonata, please be my guest.” Rainbow chuckled. She gripped the club tight between her fingers. “‘Brain.’ Heh.” Rarity lidded her eyes. “What’s funny about that?” “‘Brain.’ ‘Sonata.’ Kinda an oxymoron, right?” Rainbow danced her eyebrows. “Huh? Huh?” Rarity sighed. “Oh, just be off with you and try not to kill anybody. There’s too much paperwork involved.” Rainbow Dash glanced out the window, the club balanced on her shoulder. She skewed her mouth to the side. “Huh. Sonata. It’s been, like, ten years since we’ve seen her, right? I wonder if she’s changed at all.” “If God grants mercy on us.” Rarity wagged her hand. “Now shoo! Pinkie’s counting on you!” Rainbow stepped out of their apartment and into the hallway, twirling her keychain around her finger. She wouldn’t be able to take her motorcycle, but Rarity wouldn’t mind if she borrowed her car. She wasn’t going anywhere that night. Rainbow pressed the car starter on the key and followed the sounds of a revving engine through the garage. A moment later, she was rolling through the streets, seeking out familiar sights through the blanket of water pouring out over the city. Roads flooded as drains backed up in the sewers below. Other cars were few and far between. A tree branch fell beside the car, eliciting a screech from Dash. She gripped the steering wheel tight, humming to herself. “When that lightning strikes She’s got you dead to rights You’ll know that Weather Girl is on the scene…”